At this point, I cannot help but wonder how many people I have mistakenly offended with how I label the restaurants I try to share with all my lovely readers. This week, I want to write about the more “exotic” options Nizhny has to offer when it comes to business lunch deals. What do I mean by this term you ask? Well, it is basically mostly “Asian” food, but I did not want to use the term Asian because then I would be missing a lot of cuisines in here (Indian, Thai, Filipino etc.) and as such the term Asian would not do justice to how versatile it really is in real life. Exotic is the term that some of my friends used as we tried some new dishes together in these restaurants so I will simply be using that as I write this week’s article. Read on to find out some of my favourite places to have lunch at in town, as my love for more Asiatic cuisines should be well known to my readers by now.
Tri Apelsina – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUOI2Xn~D
This fine establishment is where our “business lunch crew” had its foundations and is in fact the restaurant in which I tried my first ever business lunch. It goes without saying that this Chinese joint will not get a fair review from me, it is just not possible to do so. It has a lot of personal value for me, and they do serve superb food in a very nicely designed hall. This means that there really is not a reason not to visit them if you are around town, especially if you like (admittedly a bit toned down) Chinese food. I wish they kept the recipes more original here, but it is clear that their predominantly Russian clientele would beg to differ with me on that account.
Samurai – http://www.samurai.ru
Samurai is a Japanese-inspired chain restaurant that offers quite the variety of business lunches. Not all of these meal deals are “exotic,” but the bento box should be your go-to option here given their claimed expertise. It includes some appetizers, a soup, and a main dish, as well as a drink of your choice. Everything we tasted, from the sushi to the rice, and from the soup to the drink itself tasted as they should have tasted, tasty as heck! I cannot comment much on the originality of the food here given the fact that I visited far less “real” Japanese restaurants than I tried, say Chinese or Korean ones, but for me the taste was on point. It is often priced reasonably in the mid 300s depending on the exact ingredients used for the bento that day.
Fukuramen – http://fukuramen.ru
Well, though Samurai has the variety, Fukuramen has the quantity. If you prefer to have less variety on the table but more of a quantity for your lunch, and are okay picking from a smaller menu, you should go to Fukuramen. As the name implies, they specialize on ramen. Often, you can pick two dishes from a small menu of six or eight, with almost all dishes being a variety of ramen. I picked their miso ramen as well as the maze soba, both were quite good, but the latter just hit all the right spots for me. It was saucy, noodles were firm, ingredients all tasted as they should individually, you really cannot go wrong with a decadent maze soba. Do be warned that this duo will set you back by 500 roubles though with a drink on the side, which makes this one of the most expensive options out there for a business lunch.
Lee’s Food – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUOI2xstD
Lee’s Food has a special place in my heart due to a few simple but important (personally speaking) reasons. First and foremost, you can pick beer as your drink, something that you will not see very often. Some other spots like the Rock Bar (well, it is a bar…) also offer this option, but while they give you a puny glass of wheat juice, Lee’s Food serves what sure looked and felt like a decent 300ml cup. Furthermore, they always offer a vegetarian business lunch option (alongside a meaty one) that is mistakenly named as a vegan one. That perfectly cooked egg certainly was not vegan, but it was as tasty as they come! Last but not least, the food was on par with some of the better Korean restaurants I have been to so far, both in terms of its originality and in how good it all tasted. Sure, Korean cuisine needs some getting used to, but once you get past that initial period, Lee’s Food in Nizhny will satisfy all your Korean food needs for around 460 roubles, if you visit them for a business lunch that is.
Mahjong – https://yandex.com/maps/-/CCUOI-AToD
Well, let us end this list on an awkward note. As you can clearly see from the photos below, Mahjong is not your usual Asian restaurant, at least not necessarily during its business lunch hours. Normally, they focus on selling noodles and dumplings, and a nice variety of them as well. However, their (likely record-breaking) cheap business lunch (at 280 roubles at this point in time) hardly has anything “exotic” on it. It is clear that we were extra unlucky with the day we picked to visit this spot, as some other business lunch menus of them that I saw so far did include some “Asiatic” options, it just was not the case for ours. With that being said, for that little cash, and for such nice dishes (well, with the exception of the main one which was a bit dry), one can hardly complain. I suppose you can give it a shot too, especially if you are looking for a cheap but fulfilling meal near the city centre. Just do not expect it to be an extremely “exotic” experience.
