It was with typical St Petersburg snobbery that I approached the Beresta Restaurant in Novgorod, thinking provincial fare couldn't live up to the delights of big city restaurants. I was pleasantly surprised by the feast on offer.
The dauntingly huge menu took a good few minutes to peruse, and once we had decided, it was a credit to the impressive service that we were not kept waiting for our starters as long as we had kept our waitress waiting with our indecision.
My Budapest salad (40,000 roubles) was a simple mixture of cubes of veal, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes, spiced up by an Italian garlic sauce.
Perhaps too simple, as I got bored before the end. No such problem for my dining companions who polished off their assorted salad (35,000) and delicatesse fish assiette (87,000) without any hesitation.
The fresh salmon, mackerel and mussels was an appetizing choice, and the garlic bread served with the salad was enough to make me regret my selection.
Other fish dishes on offer were of comparable price and the spring evening cocktail of crab, asparagus and shrimp (90,500) sounded the equal of delicatesse.
As the music segued (almost) imperceptibly from Sade to rave-Mozart, the hot starters made their appearance. One of my companions remarked that Mozart and Bach were notorious appetite-killers.
Not so, as the manti in tomato and brandy sauce, borsch and chicken broth arrived to be devoured enthusiastically even as the Brandenburg twiddled away.
The borshch (35,000) was particularly tasty, rich and warming, if slightly over-salted, and the chicken soup (35,000) brimmed over with cuts of meat and vegetables. No doubt the Solyanka (40,000) would have been a triumph, combining a peasant's idea with a top-class restaurant's execution.
By this time, the music had progressed to soothing Pachelbel, as if conscious of the fact that our appetites, though whetted by a spell in the hotel swimming pool, might be pushed beyond endurance by the dimensions of the main courses.
These arrived on enormous plates, on which the various elements of our chosen dishes were arranged in much the same fashion, be it the schnitzel (55,000), solferino cod (60,000) or the limonet pork (62,000).
The pork was tender, albeit not especially lemony, and the accompanying jacket potato with smetana and peppers was the highlight of the accompanying vegetables.
With its lemon and caviar accompaniment, the fish looked a more noble dish, while the schnitzel was standard.
The main courses may all have been more effective in smaller portions, since confronting their hugeness made the third leg of the meal feel like an endurance test of sorts. The curry (40,000) and chicken stuffed with mushrooms and chicken (55,000) sounded equally filling.
The desserts more than compensated. While one of my companions chose a simple fruit salad (21,000) -- fresh melon, redcurrants, grapes, bananas and oranges, we chose more calorific treats.
The "Leshy" (25,000) that I selected turned out to be white and dark chocolate mousse with a sponge base which was served on a pool of vanilla sauce with elaborate swirls of blackcurrant syrup. The flavors worked well together, though the texture of the mousse was not light.
The most rapturous moment of the meal, though, was my companion's reaction to her poached apple in wine with ice cream (17,000).
Poetically monikered on the menu as an Autumn Melody, the harmony of the dish's diverse elements for a moment silenced the sound of Mozart going pop.
"I'll remember this for a long time," she vowed as the last morsel disappeared from her plate. A musical triumph indeed. I doubt whether the apple strudel (20,000) or even the iced parfait (20,000) could have come close.
The restaurant has an impressive wine list: we drank glasses of Bordeaux Blanc and Crozes Hermitage at 25,000 apiece, though the Muscadet and Beaujolais at 50,000 are worth splashing out on.