An Egyptian-themed restaurant has opened across the road from me, complete with shiny heiraglyphics and fairy lights. It's a strange location for a restaurant - quiet backstreet - and I'd never seen anyone go in or out. Finally I had to take a look.
Decor is wonderful. Sphinxes, felines, profile portraits and this strangely incongruous grotto. Maybe that's the River Styx. I'm guided past the empty top two rooms and downstairs. Live music tonight, promises my host.
My Cleopatra-style waitress directed me past the one page of Arabic food on to the eight pages of Georgian. There was Ukrainian there too and probably sushi. Every restaurant in Kyiv has sushi.
I noticed three other guests in the room, then two of them got up and turned out to be the band. Russian music, my waitress confided in me, as they launched in to a pan pipe rendition of James Last. It was something special.
At the end of the song the pan pipes were exchanged for a remote, to control the karaoke machine. The keyboardist made a vague attempt to look like he was playing some notes but it was pretty clear he was faking it. They both sang with gusto though.
And the food! Well, it was everything you could expect from an Egyptian-themed restaurant with Georgian menu, Polish beer and Russian band. I spent the rest of the evening trying to remove the taste with copious amounts of coke (unsuccessfully).
It's my new favourite place.
It's over now but I should say something about winter here. It's cold. Not snap-your-face-off cold but cold enough. It sat at less than -20 deg for about two weeks. It got down to -27 for a couple of days. At that temperature you can't stay outside for more than about five or ten minutes without your cheeks freezing.
It was mostly okay though. There was no wind, and as a Finnish chap I once met said, "it's a dry cold, we just wear another pair of socks".
I was also helped by my large winter coat which a young lady helped me buy in exchange for some lingerie. But that's another story.