Let's not beat around the bush: Sydney 2000 is absolutely terrible. A sort of nightmare combination of Slim Dusty's "Pub Without Beer" and a Soviet-era restaurant offering a great menu but lacking any actual food.

In fact, the most impressive aspect of this otherwise depressing experience was the ANZAC spirit displayed by the waitress serving us, showing an extraordinary degree of stoicism in the face of a barrage of dark looks and sighs from us.

The dark looks began almost the moment we arrived.

It was around 33 degrees Celsius outside and about 41 degrees inside Sydney 2000 when we entered the restaurant, and naturally the first thing we thought of was a cold beer. The options were Foster's or Tri Medvedya, and for nostalgia's sake I opted for Foster's.

It was not available. But I wasn't going to hold that against the place, Foster's is a truly awful beer, and I asked for Tri Medvedya. "Unfor-tunately we don't have any beer tonight," the waitress explained to a stunned reviewer and his New Zealand friend. "Chevo?" I replied. "No, I am really sorry, we don't," she said firmly but politely.

Hmm. Sydney 2000 was going to have to make an extraordinary effort to recover from this – as would any restaurant that pulled a stunt like that at the height of summer – but there was no Australian fighting spirit on display.

Still, trying to make the best of it, we turned to the food. My dining partner, the redoubtable Josephine Quail, who for the better part of a decade had been denied fish and chips as a result of self-imposed exile, was salivating at the prospect of "Bondi Fish and Chips." I was also gravitating toward this. But our hopes were soon dashed when our ever-attentive waitress explained that this was also not available, and that the only fish they had was carp.

Hmm. In Australia, carp is a mud-infested pest that has ruined the Murray River and is avoided because of the ridiculous number of bones inside it

But Josephine was not to be denied. "Why don't you cook some carp and make some chips and that will be akin to Fish and Chips?" she suggested. The waitress, eager to please, but confronting more obstacles, nodded, and then explained that the deep-fryer was out of action so the chips would have to be in a frying-pan. "No problem," came Josephine's cheery reply.

The Chicken Satay that came more closely resembled fried pieces of rubber than the tender and spicy dish I had known in the real Sydney. In Sydney 2000, the chicken, with a texture and taste resembling flavorless chewing gum, was also laid out on a not-very-pleasant-looking bed of gluggy rice.

As to the avocado salad, well, as Josephine delicately said: "It's impossible to balls that one up." But Sydney 2000 rose to the challenge, presenting a plate of chopped cucumbers and avocado that was singularly flavorless; indeed it nicely complimented the Satay.

Meanwhile, Josephine's salmon salad turned out to be just that, some slices of salmon laid out on a plate.

Then came the main course. I ordered pork, which came smothered in a sort of sweet-and-sour sauce, "one of my mum's old staples," I figured. But unfortunately, the combination of a full-body hangover and the sight of the oil in the sweet-and-sour sauce was too much, and I was unable to even taste the meat. Indeed, shortly after the pork's arrival I was forced to move to another table (which was O.K. because the entire restaurant was empty).

The piece-de-resistance, though, came with Josephine's carp. "It looks like some mutant that has just been fished out of a Moscow canal," was her reaction to the full fish laid out before her. At that stage, a combination of laughter and the need to retch forced me to depart our happy table.

But true to her stoic plebian beliefs, Josephine ploughed through the entire body of the fish and was about to start on the head when I begged her to stop (not really, even this rarely squeamish lady from New Zealand was overwhelmed by the monster from the depths).

By this stage, the only thing left for me was to get out as fast as possible. But Josephine, demanded that we stay through till stumps, saying she had to sample the apple pie.

Who was I to refuse? I drank a coffee, most of it out of the saucer because my hand was shaking so violently, while Josephine enjoyed the apple pie, which she described as "delicious" (a feather in the cap for Sydney 2000).

I am not really sure what to say here. The notion of Australian cuisine is rather strange to begin with, characterized by blandness until the arrival of thousands of migrants from across the world that brought culinary diversity and excitement to the country. On paper, at least, Sydney 2000 attempts to give a sense of that new diversity. Also, in fairness, the waitress explained that when the restaurant has a very good week it tends to run out of many things by Sunday night — when we chose to dine — as new stock only arrives on Monday.

So it could be that we just happened to choose the wrong day, and that Sydney 2000, with its kangaroo steaks, exotic prawn dishes and the like, does have something to offer.

But somehow, I doubt it.

SYDNEY 2000
19 Sadova-Spasskaya Ul.
Metro: Krasnye Vorota
Tel: 975-4451