With city center real estate being an ever more expensive and competitively sought-after commodity, restaurateurs have been going further afield in search of suitable premises. No longer is your best bet outside the Garden Ring necessarily a familiar chain; the sleeping suburbs have been waking up to a higher standard. One example is the recently opened Pivo k Pivu. A relatively small, two-story beerhouse in an obscure location, it gives the big boys such as Kolbasoff and Starina Muller a run for their money.

With redbrick walls creating coziness and a large open grill adding to the warmth, Pivo k Pivu proves surprisingly pleasant. The main decoration is numerous photos of extreme sports, such as mountaineering and jet skiing, which look as if the owner decided to display his collection of vacation shots.

The menu is substantial and features, as you would expect, plenty of good choices from the grill. There are three varieties of shashlik (chicken 195 rubles, pork 280 rubles and lamb 340 rubles), and various steaks including a T-bone (720 rubles). There are some appealing seafood options, including a particularly tasty grilled river trout stuffed with herbs (330 rubles). The long list of beer-friendly dishes includes four varieties of sausages (235-580 rubles), chicken wings (220 rubles), cheese-stuffed jalapenos (220 rubles), and prawns boiled (230 rubles) or fried (240 rubles). Fish lovers should try the delicious fillet of Baikal lake sig smoked according to an old Siberian recipe (250 rubles).

The substantial beer selection starts at 70 rubles for a half-liter of Sibirskaya Korona and includes Lowenbrau at 100 rubles a half-liter, three sorts of dark Czech beer (Krusovice 160 rubles a half-liter, Chernovar 190 rubles a half-liter, Velvet 160 rubles for 400 milliliters), and various other imported filtered and unfiltered beers (160-230 rubles).

13 Ul. Simonovsky Val, Bldg. 3,

674-0420, noon-last guest,

M. Proletarskaya.