Last Saturday we decided to go test a couple of new places after visiting an exhibition at the National Museum of Finland. We started by heading back to Runar, the bar located at hotel F6 and this time we were there late enough for the bar to be open. I had a lovely rum-based cocktail with cherry, vanilla and blood orange flavors – it was refreshing and not too sweet. Hubby opted for a traditional dry martini, which was nice and neutral. After these aperitifs we headed to Bystro. The restaurant that serves Slavic cuisine has been around since March 2016 but at first the menu did not entice us. The menu had clearly been updated at some point and now there were several interesting options. They offer a three course menu with a set starter and dessert but you get to select the main. As the menu was reasonably priced and the starter and dessert sounded good we chose the menu. It also turned out that until the end of September, Bystro had a two for the price of one campaign on this menu. We also decided to try out the wine paring consisting of three glasses of wine.
The starter was a selection of zakuska consisting of onion pie, whitefish roe mousse, rye bread with butter, and Russian pickles with honey and house made sour cream. The pie was relatively standard but tasty. I really liked the mousse and the rye bread was among the best I’ve ever had. The pickles worked well with the accompanying honey and sour cream but by themselves they had a bit too much spices and not enough salt. Another problem was that they were a bit “raw” to my taste, which may be due to them being so small. But all in all the zakuski were nice and I was amazed at how well the accompanying rose wine paired with all of them, even the pickles.
We both chose pelmenis for our main. Pelmenis are dumplings consisting of a filling wrapped in thin, unleavened dough. These were filled with meat and served with caramelized onion and house made sour cream in a meat broth. The waitress recommended a side order of red and nut adjika to go with the pelmenis and it was a perfect addition to the dish. Adjika is a Georgian-Abkhaz hot, spicy but subtly flavored dip often used to flavor food. The pelmenis were delicious but personally I would have preferred a “deeper” broth with more flavor. The pelemenis were served with a nice French red wine.
Dessert was a honey bavaroise with apple and salted caramel. The dessert tasted really lovely but there were a few texture problems. The caramel was a bit too stiff and the topping of roasted barely was too hard and you had to be careful not to chip a tooth. I actually left most of the barley on the plate. The dessert wine was a nice Sauternes. All in all, a lovely dinner experience at a reasonable price and very good service. Our waitress was friendly and professional and the fact that the chef served the dessert was a nice touch. If there are new interesting options on the menu we will certainly visit Bystro again.
Image courtesy of Bystro as I was so excited about the dessert I forgor to take a pic. The restaurant kindly sent me this upon request.
