CityLife

Aastoria restaurant

Aastoria

Aastoria
Cheetham Hill
March 2011

Overall: 3/5
Decor: 2/5, Service: 3/5, Food: 2/5

After my third glass of a Ukrainian vodka, I felt prepared to eat anything. Which was probably a good thing for some, though not all, of the dishes I encountered on my trip to Manchester’s only Ukrainian restaurant, Aastoria.

Indeed the vodka, which I’m pretty sure was Khortytsa, may have been served to take the edge off the slightly bizarre surroundings of this converted former casino on Empire Street in Cheetham Hill.

We were the only diners staring across the rows of empty tables arranged in military medium across the large wooden floor. Well okay, it was a Sunday night and the restaurant and its staff were recovering from a ‘Blues’ night on the Saturday.

A sound system, presumably set up for said event, continued to blast out a few eastern European howlers with a Eurobeat pulse. Occasionally we were treated to a wall of white noise when the equipment short circuited.

The room is encircled by a huge patterned mirror and golden columns. In one corner stands a white baby grand piano.

I couldn’t find out much about the history of the building, but the exterior and interior suggest it was once a small, Art Deco-style cinema built in the 1920s or 30s. Why the double ‘a’ in Aastoria I wondered – surely not to get the top of the telephone directory’s Ukrainian-restaurants-in-Manchester section?

Our guide to this mysterious piece of the old country was Ketch – a friendly front of house man aglow with a sheen earned during the previous evening’s exertions. He had already warned me not to drive to the Aastoria, claiming that he would be doing his best to get us drunk.

So we asked how to go about raising a glass of vodka Ukrainian-style – and that’s where the Khortytsa came out.

Marketed as superior vodka, I discovered later that it is made with ‘structured water’ which gives it smoothness. Bogus scientific claims aside, the vodka served its limited life span.

Held up to the word ‘Nazdorovya!’ – Ukrainian for ‘good health!’ – it had to be, Ketch warned, thrown down the gullet without a drop being replaced on the table. Failing to do so would be churlish in the extreme.

The first measure was filtered through milk, the second flavoured with honey and pepper, and there was some confusion over whether the third was filtered through, or simply labelled, platinum. Some Moldavian beer helped to cool the radiating warmth of the spirit.

The menu at the Aastoria is not cheap. In a fairly extensive and slightly confusing list there is the obligatory borscht soup (£6.40), steak tartar (£12), draniki or potato pancakes with red caviar £8.45) and that old stalwart, chicken kiev (£12.35) – cooked as Ketch told me in the proper Ukrainian way.

But we were nodded in the direction of the specials menu, which was all in for two at £30.

The first thing I ate was the best: a comforting bowl of kharcho soup, thickened with tomatoes, rice, carrot and pleasing lumps of lamb, which was despatched with ease due to a day’s cycling in the Peak District. A side order of sour cream was the perfect additive for this homely portion of grandma’s goodness. My partner, Sarah, went for the draniki, which came again with sour cream. It was a bit dank and lifeless, without the expected crispiness.

The mains were both partnered with a sauce described on the menu as ‘sauce volute’ but which I can only describe as the equivalent of Heinz mushroom soup.

Mine came poured lavishly over a healthy slice of roast pork loin which in itself was fine – fibrous but tender.

It was matched with a timbale of mashed potato dressed strangely with a basil leaf.

Sarah’s main meal was holobchi, a meal of peasant origins and a sort of mushy pork mince mash wrapped in a dull, but quite firm, shroud of white cabbage leaf sitting on a sort of gloopy, flavourless tomato sauce.

It was dressed again in the sour cream a la Jackson Pollock, which didn’t do much to elevate the dish from its its rustic origins. I’m sure there must be good holobchi somewhere, but I don’t think I’ll be making a desperate attempt to find it.

Sarah’s sauce volute came in a little side bowl to which it seemed better suited in a sort of take-it-or-leave-it fashion. Having failed to try any of the Moldovian wine on the menu because Ketch told us it was a little sweet, we asked for a glass of Tzarka Nevesta, which the internet suggests means Tzar’s Bride, to accompany our pudding. It tasted almost exactly as I expected – rustic and sweet.

Ketch left the wine on the table, urging us to have another glass and we ended up paying for the bottle – an eventuality we didn’t anticipate.

Desserts were spectacularly presented with colourful swashes of sauce but it didn’t do much to disguise that my so-called honey cake (£6.95) was a fairly grim slice of dull gateaux-type sponge interspersed with ingredients that were hard to assess.

Perhaps the vodka had dulled my senses but I couldn’t detect where the honey had gone.

Sarah’s apple Charlotte (£6.95) seemed no better. I’m never too sure what type of pastry makes up apple Charlotte but in this case it had been replaced by a sponge. Caramelised slices of apple went on top and it was served with some ice cream.

At this stage we were treated to a further glass of vodka by the owner and began to feel that we should get the bill before we went face down on the table whimpering ‘nazdorovya!’ to the staff.

Despite the uneven quality of the meal we left happy, or was it drunk? Would I recommend you go? Yes, for the experience alone, if not for the food – just make sure you get plenty of vodka down you – and don’t forget the nazdorovya!

Aastoria Restaurant Bar, 2 Empire Street, Cheetham Hill, M3 1JA (0161 819 5571, www.aastoria.co.uk).