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The Paparazzi restaurant is nicely placed on Aviatorilor Av. and even fine decorated (even if it doesn’t display a lot of originality) in a pleasant 50s or 60s, style with the pictures of some celebrities discretely framed and beautifully exposed.
Paparazzi Restaurant
I entered there on a frosty day and at my express request I was taken by a very gentle young lady in the non-smoking room. In my compartment (because the room resembles a compartment, rather having the size of a parior) two ladies were eating more or less peacefully. I took a tea and I ordered some food. The ladies finished eating and to my surprise they took out their cigarettes, they light them and they start smoking like Turks. I resisted for 5 minutes in the smoke house after which, with a slight irritation both physical (because I had a little bit of a cold and my throat was already beginning to feel soar) and psychological (because I couldn’t understand the stolidity of smoking in a room for non-smokers in the conditions in which the rest of the restaurant was almost empty).
I decently express my grievance to the staff made up of the gentle girl and another gentleman waiter who seemed easily superior in rank. The answer looked like an army boot against the naked behind of a fresh recruit: "we are sorry, but tonight because of the crowd we don’t have a non-smoking section!". I’ve tried a line that tied somehow with the laws in force in Romania which provide for the obligatory presence of these spaces. The answer was extremely gentle but the same: "we are sorry, this is how things are".
I got back to the table with the tail between the legs and pissed of. The ladies were yapping away like you could think they had grabbed brad pitt’s I won’t say what (I write this guy’s name with small letters, like for animals for pure reasons of cultural-value).
I made my way to the toilette and when I got back a surprise bigger than those of the fairy on tvr1: the ladies had been moved to the place they fully deserved: in the smoking room towards the toilette. I rubbed my little hands Mefistofel style and I looked towards the small bowl that contained 4 peeled shrimps the size of a medium forefinger. They floated in a hot sauce, very oily and very hot. The bowl was very small, but compared to the padding it seemed disproportionately big. In exchange the bread was fresh and good. I ate bread with sauce because I didn’t get anything out of those lost shrimps and then the fish came. The fish was a grilled salmon which proved to be well cooked but unaccompanied by a sauce that could give it somehow a sense of tasty, if not refined cuisine. I felt like on the beach in Vama, in the old times when I used to roast oysters and frog fish on the cob fire. The cake is clearly not a paparazzi specialty. Prices are average as form but essentially RON 16 for 4 shrimps the size of a little finger could be interpreted as an exaggeration.