Most of our holidays are centred around walking and eating and walking some more so we are hungry again. Riga was no exception. Not knowing what to expect we were really pleased to get off to a good start by visiting Garage, a tapas bar where I had a delicious ceviche salad and Jonny had a small platter of local cheese.
On the prowl that night for some vegetarian fast food we went to Street Burgers, open on Good Friday and serving a hearty portobello burger with a side order of fries.
The next morning, in search of good coffee we headed for Innocent Cafe and found it was brunch time. The table was laden with strips of smoked cheese, pickled vegetables, potatoes, salads and fish.
To be honest my stomach was not ready for some of these savoury treats but I happily had a couple of rounds of olives, potatoes and cheese on toast.
Later, in the Old Town, I popped into Black Magic cafe. They specialise in serving Riga Black Balsam, a herbal liqueur served in coffee or neat. It wasn’t quite balsam-o-clock yet so some more walking was called for before our next stop.
Looking for lunch we were nearly invited into this den by the Latvian Russell Crowe but pushed on to find restaurant 1221 of which we’d read good things.
1221 was as lovely as described with lots of people stopping to take photos of the painted exterior.
Unfortunately however, the menu was not a good fit for a vegetarian and his vege-quarian companions.
Although for the carnivores there was something for everyone.
We dined that night at our hotel restaurant, which we never do but it was cold and raining so we allowed ourselves the luxury of going downstairs. The food was delicious and came with glasses of birch water, compliments of the chef.
So we managed to eat our way around Riga without resorting to pork knuckles and cabbage as some guide books would suggest. The euro goes a lot further outside of Finland too and we were very grateful to leave feeling so well fed.
Seems the only thing going hungry on our trip were these poor little guys at the airport.
Hey Helsinki 
I was just looking yesterday at pics we took in 1998 of beavers foraging at dusk in Royal Tunbridge Wells England =. Cannot imagine eating their flesh ! But would eat horse if there was no other option.
Yet another well written episode from your stay in Riga with more great pics to back it up. Good stuff.
LikeLike
Is signage for the public in Riga still always printed in Russian as well as Latvian?
LikeLike
Good question. I think in the airport there was Latvian, Russian & English but I didn’t notice it so much in the city.
LikeLike
Same story — longer version, different city (Tallinn):
http://pi.library.yorku.ca/dspace/bitstream/handle/10315/4018/icos23_790.pdf?sequence=1
LikeLike
Great, thank you!
LikeLike
Yes, thank you, Urmas (and Leonid Ragozin). Can you identify for me the two languages on the sign other than Russian and English? I love learning about the use of the different Finno-Urdic (sic?) languages in the Baltic area and am curious about the extent to which Russian language and culture remain in evidence in the countries in that area other than Russia.
LikeLike
Finno-Ugric languages. 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages
Street signs:
Mūrnieku iela — Latvian, current spelling, “Mason street”
Мурничная ул. (улица) — Russian, converted to cyrillics, not translated, “Murnichnaya street”, -(chna)ya being the feminine form required by the feminine noun улица (“street)
Maurer Str. (Straße) — German, “Mason street”
Muhrneeku eela — Latvian, old spelling, “Mason street”
Note the late 19th – early 20th century pecking order in the sign: first, Russian as the official or state language, next, German as the language of the local Baltic autonomy, and finally Latvian, the vernacular.
“Baltic Autonomy”? Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russian_control_.281710.E2.80.931917.29
“Russian language and culture”? Russian language can be heard on streets in Estonia and Latvia — about a quarter of the populations in those countries are ethnic Russians (brought in by Soviet mass immigration after the WWII). But it is a complicated issue — and one that is getting more and more complicated by the current — pardon my French — Russian lunacy. Read these for starters:
http://www.euronews.com/2015/03/06/concerns-over-ukraine-in-estonia-s-russian-speaking-community/
http://qz.com/344521/in-estonia-life-is-good-maybe-too-good-for-ethnic-russians/
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/russians-estonia-twenty-years-after
LikeLike