Moscow restaurants establishing tradition of oyster festivals

Moscow-based restaurants have made a new tradition of autumn oyster festivals for the sophisticated consumers of the Russian Capital, according to reports from the area.

More specifically, HOTEL Restaurant started such festival on 14 September. An oyster bar was opened to offer the visitors 9 types of very rare fresh oysters. All the oysters are supplied to the restaurant in live form from France, Ireland, Holland and are stored in sea water only. According to the report, one of the most attractive offers on the menu is Belon oysters sold at RUR235.00 each. Belon oysters are famous for their clear marine aftertaste and firm meat containing a lot of iodine.

Maren d’Oleron oysters are promoted by Moscow restaurants as Special – Blue Shell No.1. The consumers are told that these oysters are transferred into the pools with blue clay in the their third or fourth year in order to absorb important micro-elements such as iron, copper, zinc, iodine, phosphorus as well as vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12 and a combination of fatty acids. Another region St.Vaast grows oysters with a taste resembling nuts. They are priced at RUR155.00 per oyster.

HOTEL visitors are also offered unusual deepwater oyster Belle de Kirbon No.2 inhabiting pelagic waters of the ocean. HOTEL Restaurant offers the latter product at RUR135.00 per one oyster. The same price is charged for Special – Silver Shell, fatty oyster Creuse Ireland No.1, Norman oysters Perle Blanche No.2 and Fines de Claire No.1.

Riviere

Along with the classic oyster offer, the autumn menu of another Moscow restaurant – Riviere – contains unique Tsarskaya oyster (tsar’s oyster) once grown specially to the order of the Russian royalty. The price per one oyster is RUR210.00.

Rybnyi Bazar

In the meantime, Rybnyi Bazar Restaurant conducts an oyster festival from 20 September to 20 October. During the festival the restaurant will sell its visitors all the oysters at a mere RUR69.00 each with the range on offer claimed to be one of the largest in Moscow. More specifically, the visitors will be offered 15 types of oysters delivered on a daily basis from France, Ireland, North America, Portugal, Holland and Japan.

Rybnyi Bazar offer oysters of various sizes. Flat oysters are marked with zeros. The largest are marked as 0000. Belon oysters of the average size stand as 00. Flat oysters inhabit shallow waters of Europe. The restaurant’s chef recommends his guests to try flat oysters harvested at the shores of Bretagne such as Belon, Maren, Gravette and Arcachon.

Unlike their flat congeners, deepsea oysters inhabit the waters of the Pacific Ocean, but they are easily reproduced in artificial environment. Such mollusks are also called Creuse. Their size is identified not by the number of zeros, but as an ordinary number. The largest are marked No.1. Deepsea oysters have one more division into categories. They can be either Fine or Special. The oysters are sorted into the above categories according to the correlation of the total volume of the oyster to the weight of its meat and juice. However, thanks to some manipulations oysters from one category can be converted into another one. Towards that end, mollusks are bathed in a pool with sea water and special seaweed. After such baths Fine oysters turn into Fine de Clair and Special – into Special de Clair.

Along with the above oysters, Rybnyi Bazar offers wild Japanese oysters, as well as Canadian and US malpec, Perle Noir and Perle Blanche, Blue Shell and Pink Shell. All the oysters are offered at RUR69.00 each.