Baku is a different kind of restaurant to where I'd normally go, but my friend was in the mood for…read moreRussian food so we trekked out to Baku. The restaurant is actually on the bottom floor of a huge soviet-eqsue block of flats, we seems quite appropriate. Stepping inside, we were greeted by an elderly Russian man with a laptop, who was singing karaoke love songs for us all night (towards the end, he stepped up a gear into disco tunes).
The decor varied between vaguely normal and really quite odd, all while maintaining a distinct whiff of the 90s. According to my Russian friends, restaurants like this don't actually exist in Russia, except as mob hangouts(!)
Anyway they have Russian beer, which was quite decent. I forget the name (something starting with a B), but it came in three flavours, originally titled 3, 5 and 7. Handily, this is an indication on how close to a standard pilsner they taste, with 3 being the closest and 7 the furthest away.
The food was pretty good. I had Borsch soup for a starter, followed by Pilmeni. Friends had Schaschlik, which was also pretty good. It's not cheap though, with the main courses coming in at around EUR11-EUR20.
Overall, if you want Russian food, there's not much choice in Hamburg and for any kind of food you could do far worse than trying Baku. It's weirdness has a certain charm.