THE DISH: Lyubimy Habib

Lyubimy Habib//23 Ulitsa Rubinsteina//Tel. 575 6131//Open daily 12 p.m. until 12 a.m.//Menu in Russian only//Dinner for two with alcohol: 2,440 rubles//($80.50)

Chris Gordon

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: March 13, 2013 (Issue # 1750)

Unloveable and Unloved

If further evidence were needed that quantity rarely equals quality, Ulitsa Rubinshteina — which has become the city’s de facto restaurant row — would be proof positive. And while the appearance of yet another new restaurant isn’t necessarily exciting news, it does offer an opportunity to try to spot emerging trends.

With the opening of Lyubimy Habib, the street now has its second Central Asian restaurant to sit alongside the Italian, Spanish and pub food already on offer. The funky, well-designed space features an eclectic 70s vibe that somehow manages to feel fresh. With a long, exposed-brick wall topped with Moorish tiling backing open cooking stations and dangling chandeliers, a soft glow suffuses the room that is both flattering and cozy.

So far so good, but where the restaurant falls down is in its service. Friendly but inept, the wait staff all seemed to be more interested in their mobile phones than the diners desperately trying to catch their attention.

As far as trends go, the menu sadly fails to break any new ground. In what can only be seen as an unwelcome throwback, classic Central Asian dishes sit side-by-side with uninspired pizzas. The ubiquitous sushi menu, which seems to be a staple of a certain class of restaurant, is provided as a supplement to the main menu and speaks of a fear of commitment and a hedging of bets.

In keeping with our initial reason for choosing the place, we stuck to the Central Asian side of the menu and started with a plate of stuffed grape leaves (250 rubles, $8) and kutabi (230 rubles, $7.50) — normally a large, slippery, filled ravioli.

The grape leaves, when they finally arrived, were served gently warmed with a tangy yogurt sauce and were admirably dense and meaty although a bit under seasoned and lacking the usual hit of mint. The kutabi sadly arrived deep-fried, looking like a pale matzo cracker and tasting more like a chebureck. While the fillings of meat, cheese and greens were all flavorful, the bland and chewy dough made them rather a chore to force down. Luckily by that time the wine had arrived – just.

The wine list features some exciting Armenian selections as well as wines from Italy, France and further afield but has surprisingly not been updated with Georgian wines, which have recently become available in Russia following a ban on imports that lasted many years.

Trying to get a bottle of wine from Europe also proved surprisingly difficult. The first three bottles we selected from the list were unavailable and the Italian white from the Veneto (800 rubles, $25) that we finally settled on took a good ten minutes to arrive and was warm when it did. Another 15 minutes on ice and it was drinkable but by that time we were really in need of something stronger.

Shashlyk is almost always a safe bet at a Central Asian restaurant, and that holds true at Lyubimy Habib. The version featuring lamb cutlet (370 rubles, $11.75) was admirably tender, well seasoned and grilled to perfection. The lula kebab with sesame (260 rubles, $8.25), however, arrived without a sesame seed in sight. Apparently the kitchen had decided to replace them with an unpleasantly shard-filled and strangely flavorless crusting of coriander seeds.

With a bit of wine left but hankering for something sweet, we decided to split a dessert. The schizophrenia seen elsewhere on the menu is carried through to the dessert menu which offers choices from around the globe.

In the end, we settled on an order of profiteroles (240 rubles, $7.50) as being sufficiently innocuous. What arrived however would make even the most forgiving diner blanche.

The pile of profiteroles was deep-fried and crunchy, and left a lingering aftertaste of slightly rancid oil that coated the tongue. The unctuous warm chocolate fudge that normally makes the dish so irresistible was barely there, replaced by a thin dribble of brown liquid, as if the kitchen had added water to a nearly empty can of chocolate sauce. To this was added an equally thin cherry sauce that, besides being a shocking color, brought a sour note to the dish that was as unwelcome as it was unappealing, making the whole mess look like a rather gruesome accident.

While Ulitsa Rubinshteina may now have a new Central Asian restaurant, it’s probably a good idea to give it a miss and look elsewhere for an evening’s meal. With all the choices nearby, it won’t take long to find something better.