Although the Arirang Korean restaurant opened in St Petersburg more than two years ago, it appears to have resigned itself to a dignified obscurity.
The tidy premises decorated in Oriental style with dark fancy furniture were empty when we paid the place a visit.
The menu, in both Russian and English, appeared immediately -- together with Chinese-style tea -- and we asked for advice on the range of the vegetarian dishes. The waitress readily described all the possible choices, warning that we might not particularly like some of dishes we wanted to order.
A few of the items on the menu did sound a little strange, such as "bitter soup with octopus, ventricles and vegetables" which actually turned out to be a spicy soup with octopus, tripe and vegetables.
The soup, like most soups on the menu, cost around $15 while the main courses were priced between $20 and $40.
My partner ordered an oyster soup. It was spicy, with a soya cheese base --and it tasted fantastic.
The soup was incredibly rich -- shrimp and octopus tentacles floated among the cheese and soya flakes. A whole egg was discovered lurking at the bottom of the bowl.
I decided to try the "steamed rice with fried vegetables and meat on a heated stone plate." It was priced at $15 but I asked them to take out the meat.
It arrived at the table in just 10 minutes -- and you should have heard the sizzling it gave off as the dish went on cooking in the large stone bowl for another 20 minutes.
The whole affair looked fabulous -- cucumbers, fern, beansprouts, long thin slices of carrot, and slabs of some unidentifiable but tasty brown/green substance laid around a raw egg yolk. The whole ensemble was presented on a bed of rice.
"You have to stir it all up," warned the waitress. "But remove some of that spicy sauce from under the yolk if you don't like very spicy food."
The dish, which was served with a cup of broth, was mouthwatering, the portion very generous.
We were also treated to a range of appetizers and rice in a covered metal bowl for no extra cost.
The appetizers were delicious: cabbage with cucumbers, pickled garlic, small potato cakes, potato sticks and Korean cabbage.
My "fried pasted chicken with vegetables in sour-sweet sauce," priced at $20, was a vast dish consisting of succulent chicken in brown pastry dipped in a semi-transparent sweet and sour sauce served with large slices of red pepper, diced carrots, apples and Korean cabbage.
The ensemble was crowned with a carrot cut in the shape of a flower and a thin decorative leaf of something looking very oriental.
The extraordinary names given to the dishes were intriguing to say the least.
My partner's main course was entitled "salad of raw cartilaginous fish" -- and in the Russian version -- "of raw red fish".
Thin transparent slices of raw red fish were laid across a bed of finely chopped cabbage together with what looked like a small green ball.
"This is a Korean mustard," explained the waitress. "You should mix it with the soya sauce." He did. It tasted fantastic.
The fruits on offer as the sole dessert seemed, and were, expensive ($20) but were nothing short of sublime: apples, oranges, bananas, pineapple and kiwi arranged in the most spectacular fashion.
The service at the Arirang was as remarkable as the food.
The selection of drinks on offer was fairly limited: vodka ($10), sodji ($10), beer ($4), wine and champagne ($20), orange juice, Coca-cola and Sprite ($2) and mineral water ($4).