Raekoja plats 15
Tallinn, Estonia
Tel: +372 6276245
Date of Last Visit: Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
The Victim: Dad
The Damage: Unknown! Dad paid.
The Background: I had narrowed down dinner to two locations and asked the concierge for the deciding vote. Troika it is! Particularly, I was excited because all the write-ups mentione pelmeni–and I have a soft spot for pelmeni after visiting Russia with my friend Aileen in 1998 and eating lots of delicious pelmeni everywere we went. Pelmeni, btw, are dumplings…they are like pierogi, or gyoza, or pot stickers, or well just dumplings.
The Entrance: I like it. It is busy and loud and fun. There’s live music and singing coming from somewhere. Our server asks us if we’d like some vodka and pickles–we say yes immediately because my dad’s new best friend–the server at Gloria–told us that we must have the vodka and pickles.
The Drinks and Starters: The vodka arrives and our server puts on quite a show pouring it for us. He raises the bottle about three feet from the table and pours the vodka in. It’s a cool display. Now the pickles…I am not a fan of pickles…but give me some pickles, honey, and sour cream, and you’ve got me, maybe forever. Our server at the Gloria wine bar had arleady told us what to do—take a sip of vodka, dip the pickle in the honey and then in the sour cream, eat. And drink some more vodka. This was a clever little trick. Too bad it wasn’t free! You can tell we liked this dish…
The Mains: My pelmeni were boring. They were served with three types of sour cream that were just not so very exciting. My dad’s fish was only okay. We were disappointed.
The Service: The service started off well, but quickly went downhill. It took forever for our mains to arrive, and our server just wasn’t so very charming. After the service at Olde Hansa and Gloria–which was just so very very good–we were disappointed.
The Verdict: Eh. Although off to a good start, Troika didn’t deliver.
