The hill met the ghost of Algirdas Brazauskas in the restaurant

There is, let’s say, almost a restaurant in the Palace of the Governors (they are not called a restaurant, they call it a “gastrobar”; there is no such thing as a “gastrobar” (unless the “gastrobar” rhymes with an “ethnic mansion” if you understand what I mean by that), although a fancy, nonsensical name is often a cliché when it’s not quite clear what one is trying to do here. Another of those words is “salon.” The salon, in any case It usually means calling the bar too easy for them, and at least half the staff can open a bottle of champagne.

So that dining establishment in the Palace of the Rulers has the name of “Garden of the Rulers”, which is not the most common name in our unfortunate country, where new, narrow and repetitive houses built on trash, with views Old Soviet silicate brick cowards are commonly known as “Dukes’ Terraces.” The Gardens of the Kings, the Pontifical Powers, the Little Vatican and the Diplomats. This is because it is no easier for developers to name their projects than it is for poets to mix cement and mortar foundations.

That’s right, Garden of the Lords offers brunch, and I don’t usually give up on brunch. Staying on an empty stomach ruins the entire Saturday, our ancestors said. The view from the terrace to the castle of Gediminas is worth if not a million, but a hundred euros, especially considering that the sliding slopes of the mountain are mended and the castle tower shows what another ten years will bravely endure.

The view from the Garden of the Rulers to the tower of Gediminas Castle is the best thing about that restaurant and also the only reason to go there. In fact, the tower of the Gediminas Castle can still be seen standing in the Cathedral Square and raising your head. But if you want to do it by sitting at a table and having a drink, please, this is your chance.

I don’t know why, but I remembered that there are many very weak restaurants in the world in very nice places. Try a delicious meal in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square. There, Albanians huddle in the kitchen, quickly heating up frozen pizzas from a local Italian schoolboy, and tourists are spoiled with the world’s most expensive coffees, and empty-headed visitors can snap pictures of those cafes and share photos on line of colleagues, business center office plankton. cages.

The “Garden of the Lords” brunch menu seems chaotic: the concept or idea didn’t stop there. The restaurant belongs to the honorable company “Taurakalnis”, which prepares food for buffets and presentations (as far as I knew, it was always good – and I have to walk to other events with the elite, believe me, and I will tell you where the good food is, especially when that free meal – as soon as there’s an event, you’ll find me at the oyster tray and champagne tap). However, event caterers aren’t always ready for a different range. This is nothing terrible. There are, for example, actors who play well in the theater, and here in the cinema, neither this nor that.

The food was not badly prepared. It was quite delicious. All the ingredients were treated with respect and correction, but there was no feeling of being in the very center of the European capital and eating in a luxurious place. In the kitchen, I will say with a sigh, rather the housewives, not the chef, nothing terrible, the housewives also tend to do well. Everything was simple until the pain. Maybe it all reminded me of the autumn resort cafe somewhere in Šventoji (just maybe in Šventoji the portions are three times bigger). Or sitting on the Curonian Spit by the lagoon, I don’t get hooked much either (maybe just sometimes), because I don’t expect anything. And here, for whatever reason I expected, only the ghost of Brazauskas appeared with his head bowed and his finger clenched, as if to say: how many years have you worked as a restaurant inspector and how did you not learn to calibrate expectations, Užkalni your Užkalni.

The English breakfast was on a relatively small plate (at least the smallest one I’d ever seen an English breakfast on – the two eggs didn’t even fit side by side and were banging on top of each other like a retiree in a grocery store. edibles that does not keep a safe distance during a catanthus), the sausages were more chorizic type, quite a variant of why not, and I have to praise that the eggs were precisely fried, with runny yolk and did not burn fatally as they usually be the case, for example, in Nida. Some beans in tomato sauce.

A friend who eats cold borscht always and everywhere, what do you know, if you carefully and breathlessly follow my apathetic literary-gastronomic twists every Sunday, you order from the “garden borscht” menu and still get cold borscht. There were no complaints: we always welcome cold beets. Cold beetles are soft, creamy, not too acidic (just maybe a quarter egg is not the ruler’s dose, but rather the beggar, but what will you do here to make our nation appreciate eggs as if they were not chickens, but in the shopping cart). French fries – fries with straw: here it is not fiction, but fries for everything, as we learned recently, when they brought me a cutlet from Kiev.

The Kiev chop was a trio in itself, a normal canteen snack (also because the voices of the winches were flying yelling from the golden Lithuanian coastline), but don’t be surprised that it cost just six euros. It was small, like the thorn of a hungry squirrel, and it was brought in a bowl from which people take a dry breakfast in the morning. The bowl had the same potatoes as the cold borscht, and the cutlet was squeaky a lot and was placed in them, not quite vertically, but at such a creative angle. It’s good that we didn’t order salads as they could be served in an espresso cup.

The ghost of Algirdas Brazauskas sat on the next table and smiled, looking at us.

If you think the serving options have already been exhausted, real and supposed, please see the photo where the eggs with peas and bacon were served on a t-shirt. Peas are so specific (it was so hard to buy in my childhood, they were distributed in specialty stores and nomenclature buffets), soft, fresh from a can, and the hollandaise sauce was masterful, and the perfectly boiled egg matched them. the wolf and bacon was great, in bite-sized pieces, but for God’s sake is it really necessary to bring that plate in a glass ashtray?

The ghost of Algirdas Brazauskas couldn’t stop laughing. He turned his finger to the incense, looked at me mockingly, then collapsed, paid homage to the flag on the tower of Gediminas Castle, and, fluttering, disappeared.

They brought us a check for 36 euros and we left four more tips.

Do you know how an optimist differs from a pessimist? The pessimist says: “I do not stop.” The optimist yells at him: “How to hang up!”

This restaurant has a very good view of the tower of the Castle of Gediminas. Two out of five geese.

Garden of the Rulers, Cathedral a. 4, Vilnius. Tel: +370 694 63280. Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/valdovusodas/

Monday from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday from 11:00 to 00:30 Friday and Saturday from 11:00 to 02:00. Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.