Although this restaurant has been open for a few months now and is only a few doors down from my apartment, I had yet to try it. The opportunity arose when a group of female friends decided to meet up there on a Tuesday evening.

The garden is truly delightful, set down from street level and so quiet you'll hardly believe you're in the centre of a capital city. It makes for a unique ambience that few other restaurants in Sofia can offer - the opportunity to sit in a tree-packed garden on a sultry summer's night surrounded by the aristocratic buildings of old Sofia.

The house itself is a former military club recently restored to its original beauty. There are also rooms to rent inside. While the Doctor's Garden area has long since recovered its previous grandeur, Moskovska St. had somehow lagged behind, plagued by the indecision and inability of the municipality to repair the faded and peeling beauty of the turn-of-the century Sezession buildings and, in particular, the former royal palace and the park in front of it. Now that the Beautiful Bulgaria project has finally turned its attention to the palace, and with the European Delegation and the British Embassy moving in, the area looks set to thrive.

But back to the restaurant...

The dishes available on the menu sound tempting and there are plenty to choose from for both meat and fish lovers and vegetarians. However, in reality, the food is a bit hit and miss. Some restaurants serve enormous portions, giving you far more food than you can possibly eat, while others serve variations on `nouvelle cuisine,' with a little blob of food in the centre of an enormous plate. What I found confusing about this restaurant is that there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the servings. Some portions, like the whole avocado, were way over the top, while others, such as the baked salmon, were tiny.

We ordered a good selection of salads - I had the Kalabria (sic), which was actually a Nicoise: tuna, lettuce, anchovies, capers, egg and potato. It was tasty and just the right size. One of our group had the avocado with dressing, which turned out to be a whole avocado, sliced in two and covered in vinaigrette. Apparently it was delicious, though calorie-packed. The frutti di mare salad was termed OK as was the tomato and mozzarella, which featured basil oil dressing.

Both food and drinks were exceptionally slow arriving. There was a gap between starter and main course that would have been unacceptable if our crowd hadn't been having such fun. We filled the gap with wine, bread and gossip.

For the main course, I ordered a vegetable skewer, which comes served with ratatouille. It would have been delicious had it arrived warm. As it was, stone cold, it was a disappointing pile of barbequed cold vegetables. The seafood risotto looked pretty, though the portion was far smaller than our skewers, and tasted rather bland. The grilled salmon was the biggest disappointment of the evening - two of our party ordered it and both complained it was dry and overcooked. The small portion sat sadly alone in the centre of a huge white plate. The only main course that got the thumbs-up was the mussels with rice, which was apparently cooked to perfection and served piping hot.

The bill for seven people for salads and main course, with three bottles of wine, came to a steep 210 leva, which certainly wasn't justified by the level of service and the quality of food on the night we were there.