He nagged doctors to move him out of the Moscow Cardiological Clinic to cozier surroundings.
"I think he's out of the woods," American heart surgeon Michael DeBakey said after seeing Yeltsin.
"He couldn't have carried on much longer" without the surgery and certainly couldn't have served out the second four-year term he fought for so fiercely this summer, DeBakey said.
When DeBakey first examined Yeltsin in September, "he was incapacitated, considerably incapacitated," and his heart was working at only 20 percent. After Tuesday's seven-hour operation, "I'd expect for him to carry out his term perfectly normally."
Yeltsin's wife told Russia's Public Television that her husband was experiencing some post-surgical pain, but was in much better shape when she visited him yesterday.
In a written statement, the company confirmed the closure but said it had proved to authorities that the 660 pounds of beef were from Ireland and therefore unaffected by the prohibition. It said the beef merely passed through Britain.
The Paris police department acknowledged the beef was of Irish origin, but said the Agriculture Ministry nonetheless judged the meat to be "illicit" and closed the restaurant for 15 days. Police did not elaborate.
The Hard Rock said it would appeal.