Cafe Nektar has the first thing that a Westerner looks for in casual cafes -- chairs and tables.
The food, stuck behind glass with prices tacked on in lieu of a menu, is less encouraging. Among the standard collection of cold dishes, complete with uncooked bacon on white bread, only the bliny (1140 roubles) looked appealing.
The coffee, though, comes out of a pot (2160 roubles, no refills,) and the tea is cut from the same cloth.
The cafe, at Tekhnologichesky Institute and within walking distance of the metro, is clean and attractive in decor but, sharing the floor with a liquor-candy-cigarettes store and an exchange office, is hardly seductive in atmosphere. The loose outer door slams every 30 seconds or so.
Not a place to cross town or even the street to eat at, the cafe may still have a niche among loners whose ideal is quaffing cheap coffee, reading, and smoking to pass the time.