Ten years ago, when I was first in Tartu, beside Route 2 (E263) approaching the turn-off for Tartu Airport from the direction of Vōru and Pōlva, there was a kiosk selling Armenian shashlik ... and there was always someone standing there. Now there's this modern...building complete with landscaped gardens and two empty car-parks.
Restoran NAOS looks prosperous. Yet no-one had ever written a TripAdvisor review and I've never seen more than one or two cars in the car-park. I admit to never driving along that road in the evening, when perhaps NAOS' customers do fill the car-parks.
THE RESTAURANT - DESIGN & AMBIENCE
The entrance hall has all the welcoming warmth of an austere prison reception, except that the door mat proclaims a greeting in upside down English - WELCOME.
The entrance hall leads into a large blue-purple lit room with a reception-desk-cum-bar to the right and to the left settees of dark grey material and dark wood tables.
Off to the right is a brightly lit service corridor containing the rest-rooms.
Through the bar-reception room is the dining room with 10-12 tables, all bare of decoration but for red table cloths, allowing seating for 50-60 customers. The palm tree seemingly supporting the ceiling at the centre of the room is slightly out of place. The presence of a large flat screen tv mounted high on the wall accompanying the ubiquitous muzak issuing from speakers rather lowered the tone of the dining-room.
I always think that if the restaurant presents 'canned' visual distractions to the expected aural distraction, the management will never be motivated to improve the quality of either the service or the food.
We arrived at approximately 18.45 - at which time there was just the solitary customer was outnumber 3:1 by the waitresses. Twenty minutes later, a now solitary waitress was outnumbered by the customers 10:1!
THE MENU
I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Armenian and Georgian cuisine. I have had shashlik in other restaurants and would have tried the lamb shashlik at Naos but for the price of 15€ or 18€, which is slightly excessive for Estonia.
The menu seems to offer a mix of Estonian and Armenian cuisine with few discernible surprises, except for the cost of the lamb shashlik.
THE WINE LIST
did, however, have an interesting price list.
Recognisable wines from South America (€10.40) and Australia (€12.30) and Germany (€15.55) - probably the cheapest I've seen in Estonia for a long time and then Georgia, red and white (€17) and Armenia, red and white at €24!
I'd quite like to try Armenian wines but not when I get the feeling the price is a rip-off.
So to drink we had 2 soft drinks and 1 known Estonian label beer.
To eat, we settled on 1 x Lōhefilee (instantly recognisable), 1 x Hašlama (a never seen before lamb dish) and 1 x Ailazan (also never seen before, but which was clearly a vegetarian dish).
Our discerning grand-daughter declared the sumptuous portion of salmon as being a bit dry.
My wife eventually decided that she had enjoyed the Hašlama.
There was nothing to indicate on the menu that the Ailazan is essentially a tasty, mildly spicy, chunky vegetable soup.
All good food, all hot and well-presented, but nothing to write home about.
THE SERVICE
After ten minutes of staring at empty plates, the visible absence of the waitress forced me to go and look for her. Had she not lingered out of sight we'd have paced a dessert order. As it was by the time she arrived, we asked for the bill.
Our waitress was quite cheerful when she was taking our initial order but I suspect almost totally untrained in the importance of customer service.
Waiting staff:
- should sell the restaurant and the cuisine
- should chat to the customers
- should never be out of sight of their customers for longer than a couple of minutes.
THE PRICE
About the only aspect worth writing home-about was the overall price.More
