The Hill Advertises: Chops and fresh coleslaw can be enjoyed. Even necessary

When Lithuanians want to despise something, they call catering establishments “canteen”. Not to mention that the very term “caterer” is another monster of the Soviet era, understand the place where you feed the public, the ordinary people, and where was the extraordinary people fed? That’s right, “dining spec”, as well as stores where the products were not for everyone, there was a “special store”, or “raspredelitelius”, that is, a distribution room, where the products were distributed, not here for the popular cattle, here for the popular knights, yes.

That is why the best way to irritate readers and separate beets from normality is to write two magic words: “McDonald’s restaurant”, or to say that it is not just a service station, but a service station with a restaurant, because there are several tables and you can have coffee and sausages there. . Oh, there is a great rage of Lithuanians, sparks under the hooves and foam from the nostrils, and they shout that it is not possible to call it a restaurant, it is necessary unless it is a “restaurant”, because a restaurant is not that. Usually, those who were in the restaurant for the last time when they had their own christening balls, or when they were celebrating a wedding in a Soviet barn called a restaurant, are the ones who scream the most.

“Diner”, when you think about it, is also a terrible word that shows a lot. First of all, it is directly translated from Russian “Закусочная”, but it is not the most terrifying. Eating something, sniffing and throwing garbage quickly is something very noble, typical of a variety of people who do not know and do not want to enjoy food, who have no culture (anyway, they have no culture, culture is represented by folkloric shows and they want concerts): they don’t want to eat delicious enjoy, I don’t want to understand; they just need to add some fuel to the system, and more or less. After all, there are people who have no aesthetic sense, have no taste for cars and say “oh, I only get from point A to point B”, and these are people I don’t condemn, but whose company I don’t look for.

Therefore, perhaps I will call the restaurant “Ponių laimė”, which is located at the corner of Stiklių and Žydų streets, the old word “culinary”, although even that will not be the goal. In my childhood, cooking was a place where people who did not know or did not want to cook could buy ready-made semi-finished products: all kinds of chops, meals, something else (it was my childhood a long time ago, so many things evaporated from memory), but somehow people were never valued for food, perhaps because both the food itself, where those things were sold to working people, and the food shops were not optimized to produce delicious food, but precisely so that those who worked there could steal food for themselves and take it home. That is why, in fact, I am reacting negatively to those older people who are leaning today about the kind of beautiful Lithuania they built for us in Soviet times, to the ungrateful: I tell you, they did not build as many business days as they did. , feeding stolen compound feed to his calves. , dumped construction materials and diesel aside and were further optimized in the canteens and vegetable bases, apart from those who worked as teachers and lied to children according to the textbook six days a week, and not they felt guilty at all: “those times were.”

But let’s be the kitchen of “Ladies Happiness”. The beautiful word is culinary, derived from the Latin “culinary”, which means cuisine. And yes, the cuisine in this restaurant is paramount, despite the fact that both the interior and the location and decor are completely in place.

The “Happiness of the Ladies” (and belongs to the empire “Stikliai”, which has been living for more than thirty years, about which I have repeatedly written about the restaurant, pub, new and old menus, also on this portal) not always It was like this . It was once a restaurant on Gediminas Avenue, near the monument to the people of Žemaitė, which was famous for being the first to learn the letters of the Lithuanians (Žemaitė did not stand out with any gastronomic taste; it is believed that she ate the same bush than pets, which was normal and normal at the time in Lithuania). The restaurant “Ponių laimė” at that time had a great impact on Lithuanians waking up from Soviet manure: there were large windows through which the poor could see the gentlemen who were eating, others were outraged: “Is it necessary to advertise here, eat for yourselves and eat, why should we see? ”The descendants of those poor people (and perhaps themselves) are outraged today because after eating, I write in a review how much everything costs: it causes them jealousy and resentment. They walk constantly dissatisfied and angry, and the illuminated showcase of the good life is intolerable to them. It is not important that spiritual beets eat tasty and beautiful (for them, as we know, food does not make a difference), they need other people enjoy nothing.

Now, “Pony’s Happiness” is in the old town and is a place to eat food that comes from the restaurant kitchen, but made in house. Once on a radio show, I asked one of Stikliai’s founders, Romas Zakarevičius, what was the most delicious home cooking for him, and he replied that his mother’s chops. I thought I both really like the chops, and I like the mashed potatoes and the fresh cabbage salad, and I like the zrazai (we tried them when they came into the kitchen, and they were just as sweet as kisses or clouds, so ideal as they should be). ), and yet sometimes (very rarely) I like cutlets, and I like meatballs, cold beets, and mushroom herring. I just never object to them with high-end dishes. Pasta a la carbonara, or gnocchi with white truffles, or Japanese or Argentine steak, where hundreds of euros per kilogram, or salmon or bluefin tuna sashimi: I do not like everything or less than zrazai, but I like it in another way. That is what makes me different from beets: beets scream that they have the tastiest herring with potatoes not because they know what is tastiest to him: he interprets it this way because he does not understand or does not want to understand anything about food.

We have had many dishes, such as in the canteen, here it is not made to order, but you can choose from those that have already been prepared. Beet salads (pickled, any soft) and fresh cabbage salads, which in my childhood were sometimes called, according to an unsuccessful abbreviated inscription, “holy cabbage salads”, were simply encyclopedic here, could be used as a reference point . Is it home cooking?

Yes, but only professionals can do homemade food so well. Your mom doesn’t pay that much. The potato dish (I said “kugelis”, but as some explain to me, the dish is different from kugelis, but I am from Kaunas, I have called it kugelis all my life and I will continue to call it) was also what I would like to eat all the nuggets, if only I could and if I didn’t take care of myself and my great looks and Apollo profile, and where else the sizzling and onion sauce is like silk, and it doesn’t feel greasy (although it’s essentially a greasy sauce, you will not run away from it anywhere).

The turkey fillets were delicious, they were not deep fried and they had the right toughness (the turkey is like that and it can be a little harder), only in the course I realized that I didn’t really like the turkey; but even if you can make me not a very favorite product in a way that I consume voluntarily, it is already a great happiness.

An even greater rarity was the sauerkraut soup. There is nothing in the world that I don’t like as much as sauerkraut soup as much as I had to eat it. There was always that acid repellent there, that specific popular flavor, fu. And here everything was different, I swear, here even a dish that I never liked at home was made in such a way that I wanted to eat it alone, and I really would have eaten alone if we hadn’t shared and tasted everything in half.

The white mix (I know they have to be called Oliver salad anyway, but I’m Lithuanian, and to me it’s a white mix) was wonderfully balanced and it was possible to get an idea of ​​all the quality ingredients. If you think that all white mixes are the same, go to Garliava near Kaunas, take part in a funeral mourning lunch, where those mixes will offer you, and then you will be sure that not all are like “Ladies of Happiness”.

The mushroom herring turned out to be maybe too much cheese, but maybe there are different flavors here, I would prefer it to be more subtle, but here we’ve already moved on to details you don’t ask.

Cold borscht – Oh cold borscht! They were very thick, soft, creamy, they reminded me of some warm waves of the sea for some reason (maybe I wasn’t next to the warm sea for a long time), and there were potatoes next to them, not dehydrated as they should evaporate. It was a sensationally cold borscht.

We paid 26 euros for this whole lunch and I left a tip for another four euros because I wanted to. Also, we were served coffee and desserts (although I really wanted to pay, but I refused to take the money, and decided not to argue further: the dessert program included a Florentine sample (or Florentine pie) made of walnuts, melted with sugar and a cookie cat’s tongue (langue de chat), so crispy and sweet, well I only had one, since we got those desserts and coffee for free it would be unethical to rate them but I will say they were great and I would order them again.

What is the bottom line? The owners of the best Lithuanian restaurant (and the best beer) have the best cuisine in the country, with which few can compare; Very moderate prices and exceptionally high quality, of course, this is home cooking, not haute cuisine, but no one promised. Will I go there again? Of course, and I’ll wait until there are chops and mashed potatoes. Since I am not ashamed to love a wide variety of foods, I just need the best artisans to do their best for me the best they can.

“My taste is very simple, I am easily satisfied with the best,” said British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. I also believe it. Therefore, the “Happiness of the Ladies” is the same for a simple taste like mine.

Ladies’ happiness, Stiklių st. 1/14, Vilnius. Tel. +370 5 264 9581.

Website: www.stikliai.com/poniu-laime-vilnius

Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/StikliaiPoniuLaime/

Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.