vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #149 / Social life / Reading article...

The Hunter’s Castle restaurant can be one of two kinds of experiences, I discovered in recent trips there.

The first visit to this Svetlanskaya restaurant was like going to a Bavarian lodge with boars’ heads and racks of deer antlers on the walls and a feast laid out before you. The second was like falling into an abandoned bear cave on a hot summer day and being tormented by flies while you holler for help.

It started off so well I thought we’d made a particularly splendid discovery — right on Svetlanskaya near the First Lutheran Church and Gunnery Exhibition. A waitress who came startlingly close to smiling served a meal that was all the more satisfying because we had an American visitor with us.

Distressing though it is to confess to an apostasy that would get me thrown out of an ex-pat party, I kind of like this city. I wanted our friend to notice things beside the prefab apartment blocks and the plugged toilet at the Vladivostok News’ offices. And at the Castle there was even venison and boar on the menu. Our friend ordered baked salmon, while I tried a different fish dish. My girlfriend, in keeping with the Castle’s carnivorous ambiance, ordered a steak. Everything was delicious.

See! we (or at least I) wanted to chuckle. Vladivostok has a charm that can creep up on you, don’t you think?

So perhaps my guard was down on the second visit. I should have known that a door standing open on a hot summer day is a sign that you might be more comfortable wearing a towel and shower sandals inside. Our waitress’s listless gaze suggested someone in the final stages of heat prostration or Moonie indoctrination. And though the dining room was as deserted as the Okean on a busy day, we were ushered not into the Bavarian lord’s mannor hall, but to a tiny brick ante-chamber with what resembled a skinned wolfman hanging on the wall.

As we sat, a squadron of flies took off from the table and formed a drone overhead. My girlfriend ordered the alarmingly named “farmer’s meat” — strips of steak and mushrooms on uncutable toast. I requested the veal. Alas, what I got was a collective farm milk cow that had died of old age. I could have used some help cutting my dinner from the guy with the ax who chops up sides of gray beef in the Second River Market.

Dare I go back? I hate to say it, but I’m bound to return. Some Friday night when I can’t face the thought of a cheese and lunch-meat pizza in the place that makes cappuccino with instant Maxim, I may try the Hunter’s Castle (Zamok Okhotnika) again. Only I’m waiting till they close the front door.