Category Archives: Fooooood &drink

Lviv’s “Nostalgia” Restaurant is run by lowlife thieves

We ordered lunch off the menu, then I went inside and asked the waitress for desserts. (I had to go find her because she was too lazy to check on diners.)

When the bill came we noticed that the desserts were rather expensive. I went to the bar with the bill and paid. (Again, I had to walk because the waitress was too lazy to check on customers).

While they counted my change, I took a menu from the bar and checked dessert prices. That was when the waitress “noticed” that they had overcharged us for dessert — by almost double.

These petty criminals have no business sitting in a restaurant, much less running one.

How to Say Potato-Pancakes in Western Ukraine

A quick glance at this map reveals how effectively mountains protect local culture.

American Produce

After living and eating in Ukraine for over a year, American produce look bloated and unnatural. Onions are not supposed to be that swollen. Apples are not supposed to rival the size of my head. Carrots are not supposed to look that flawless.

Give me that dirty, crooked, small-ish, and *DELICIOUS* Ukrainian produce, please.

An Indian Restaurant With Cow-Hide Chairs

I can imagine them shopping online for “Indian furniture” without distinguishing American Indians from south Asian ones. I find these incongruities charming. The entrepreneurial equivalent of a toddler learning to walk.

Coffee Innovation

At one coffee house in Kyiv, they put this hour-glass timer on my table, and delivered my coffee before the sand ran out.

Meanwhile in Lviv, the self-proclaimed coffee capital, a barista competition:

A conversation with a restaurant manager in L’viv

I love new businesses and the energy of entrepreneurs. It’s exhilarating, and I’ve only been able to appreciate it since fairly recently — since deprogramming myself from all the socialist garbage I picked up in school.

Before I ever met this young manager, I was already a great appreciator of her restaurant. It was clean, simple, fun, tasty, innovative, inexpensive and had great customer service. I’m not going to name it because I want everything to remain anonymous.

It was fun listening to the back story over beers:

The owners are two guys both of whose fathers are politicians. (This part of the story is depressing to me. I want at least some sectors of the economy to be opened to the aristocratic competition of the free market: may the best restauranteur win.) So they probably have some cover from L’viv’s famously predatory bureaucrats and tax collectors. Typical of the political class, they do little work beyond making harsh demands on their underlings.

I think the reason I heard so much of the story was because this young lady suffered from months of pent-up frustration.

She unleashed a flood of evidence, making the case for her deserving better.

I agree with her, of course, but mostly I felt impressed and delighted to see her competence and the run-away success of a fairly new restaurant.

She told me about waking up at 6am and scouring supermarkets because she realized they were out of lettuce, about teaching employees to smile and greet customers, about choosing the design for the restaurant, about the amazingly small initial investment (less than $30k!), about their stunning profitability, about preparing documents, about late night phone calls from the owners, about begging for vacation time, about her salary (about $500 a month), about doing what I had assumed was lawyer-work — preparing franchising documents, about miraculously locating Ukrainian suppliers for things previously shipped from America, about receiving no appreciation, about her desire to switch to a government job (I hope she fails).

Of course there was some frustration, but this isn’t a sad story. It’s a glorious one. For her talents, dedication, and knowledge, I think she’ll eventually earn the money she deserves.

It’s also the story of entrepreneurial success. Yes, from her perspective, the owners have flaws, we may feel they don’t deserve their success, but L’viv’s restaurant business is at least a partially free market. I know an American who doesn’t even speak English whose year-old restaurant is fast becoming a L’viv icon (TexMexBBQ). He succeeded presumably without a relative in politics.

So their flaws aside, these two young men took a risk and are delivering fantastic food and service to thousands of Ukrainians and tourists.

God bless capitalism. May it not perish from the Earth.

Half-joking, I asked whether she’d be able to turn $20,000 into $40,000 in a year. She didn’t understand the question. I repeated: “If I give you $20,000, can you turn it into $40,000 in a year.” She was full of doubts and questions and qualifications. It’s clear that a personality capable of stunning coordination and discipline and management isn’t always a personality capable of taking a large sum of money, choosing a direction and saying to other people “follow me.” She needed the two owners (at least initially) just as much as they need her.

Roman’s Cherry Chicken Dinner

Delicious, if I do say so myself.

The Vibrancy of Kyiv, every time I visit

Of course political and financial capitals benefit economically at the expense of the rest of the country, but nevertheless, I’m always impressed and excited when I visit Kyiv — the same can be said of New York City.

Both are great places to visit.

I saw new restaurants and was particularly surprised to see an organic place and a raw-foods place. I was not surprised by the peculiar mixing of styles — Mex Tex Italiano

Of course, where there are abandoned properties literally a few hundred meters from Maidan, Kyiv’s central square, you know this isn’t a normal free market:

As on most weekends, they close the Khreshchatyk, the main street that runs past Maidan. It looked like some sports celebration. There were two girls on equestrian styled horses, gymnasts jumping on trampolines, wrestling matching, little arena-style football games, relay races, tug-of-war and more.

Olympic events invoke two of the things politicians love most: flag waving and government-funded infrastructure projects.

The Strangest Restaurant Experience of my Life

There’s a cafeteria in a factory that working at probably 15% capacity — a deteriorating shadow of Soviet times. It’s open to the public too, but it seems not many people know about it.

Here’s how you get there. First, find this place:

Walk through the lot and around this building:

Then through this alley:

Across this other lot (there’s a dotted line to help):

Around the corner, passing the rusting metal tank:

Along the back side of this building:

Through this door. Its being already open made the whole trip that much more welcoming. :)

Up these stairs:

Across this large, empty ballroom and into the door in the door in the corner:

Down the hall (the light at the end of this corridor was my second clue after the open door that they were open for business):

And there you can buy all this food for about $2.35:

It was delicious! And probably the strangest restaurant experience of my life.

Tex Mex BBQ

https://www.facebook.com/TexMexBbq

Finally found American-style customer service in Ukraine. This restaurant has been open less than a year. Its owner is American and he takes a very active managerial role.

Great to see!

Best nachos in town too.

[Show slideshow]

L’viv Restaurants Have the Funniest Bathrooms in the World

As part of my ongoing coverage of Ukrainian toilets, I want to share with you how much I enjoy the bathrooms in L’viv’s restaurants.

The “Restaurant on the Ridge” has the door to the bathroom disguised as a big wardrobe.

The “House of Legends” has a television inconspicuously fixed to the inside of the bathroom door. There’s some trigger which causes it to suddenly turn on — usually while you’re doing your business. On the screen, two men slide open a window, laugh drunkenly, and ask you to hurry up because other people are waiting. It was quite startling and funny on my first visit.

Here’s another example:

In the bathroom of the Italian restaurant Delpesto, there is a window instead of a mirror, and everything is built identically to look like a reflection. They also keep a turtle named “Love.”

The KGB-stka who lives above the restaurant

The owner tells me she denounces him every week. Writes to the city council. The denouncements don’t have the power they used. There is no firing squad or cattle train to Siberia, but they’ve entangled him in legal nonsense with the city.

My New Favorite Steak Place in L’viv

Fortunately, I found “The Гриль” (The Grill). It exemplifies kitsch: the host’s cowboy hat, vest, dungarees and boots, the rough, wooden interior, the map of the South-Western US painted onto the wall, leather-bound menus. What adds to the fun is the typical confused mixing of American styles and stereo types. The tables are covered with 50’s diner-style table clothes with checker patters and pictures of good, simple Americana foods like cherry pie, hamburgers and French fries.

It gets even stranger. For some reason, Ukrainian restaurants almost all serve pizza, coffee and sushi. You know you’re in a fancy restaurant when the menu does NOT include sushi. The Grill doesn’t pass this test, but I don’t care. The steaks are amazing!

The sushi section of The Grill’s leather-bound menus:

Ingredients for Borshch

My friend Victoria posted this on FB:

Ukrainian girl + stove + 90 minutes = Borshch

Another great thing about Ukraine is that you aren’t derided as a misogynist for such humor.

The best local dive in Ukraine

Holy Moley! This famous restaurant is found in Western Ukraine’s roadside village of Ozerna. Every trucker knows it. It’s buffet style and, as one would expect, contactly packed. It’s also some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. I’m told the restaurant is owned by a farmer. The food goes straight from field to your plate. Fantastic!

The portions are huge.

I had borshch and salo (pig fat). That’s right. Salo. For my American friends: imagine the white fat on the edge of your bacon. Now imagine it without the bacon. By itself. Cold. With piece of raw garlic beside it, and a sprinkle of paprika.

I’ve tried salo many times. Usually . . . meh. But on two occasions, including today’s . . . Wow. My paleo digestive system is still tingling, six hours later. I feel like a machine that’s finally been oiled. I can’t stop imagining the delicious taste, the texture. I’m going to dream about that salo.

I want to go back there to have it again, though I’ll also be tempted by the stakes and cutlets, fresh salads and plates overflowing with homemade pastries.

This is the type of food that makes you happy to be alive!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The cost of my meal, plus that of my friend’s: about $3.50.

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In celebration of salo:

[youtube]SHVDIP0xGxw[/youtube]

Forest Mushroom Potato Chips

This the second post in my ongoing series of strange potato chip flavors. See my first about red-caviar flavored chips.

Forest Mushroom Flavor Chips:

Arseniiivski Kvas

I love this stuff.

Live Arseniivski Kvas

What is Kvas? Wikipedia: “Kvass is a fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread. The colour of the bread used contributes to the colour of the resulting drink. It is classified as a non-alcoholic drink by Russian standards, as the alcohol content from fermentation is typically less than 1.2%. Overall, the alcohol content is low (0.05% – 1.0%). It is often flavoured with fruits or herbs such as strawberries, raisins or mint. Kvass is also used for preparing a cold summertime soup called okroshka.

It is popular in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and other Eastern and Central European countries as well as in former Soviet states, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where one can see many kvass vendors in the streets.”

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This brand is my favorite by far. Their website.