Folk Song Singing In The Cafe

While we were having dinner at a cafe in Kolomyia, Ukraine the family at the table next to us would breaking into folk songs every once in a while. Vodka was certainly involved!

 

Possibly My Greatest Food Regret

Possibly my greatest regret and, simultaneously, the best thing that has happened to me was my inability to have a meal at this restaurant.  Laura and I were on a bus headed to Kamianets-Podilskyi and we stopped at this gas station/purveyor of "Pizza Drink Rock &Roll" to pick up some new passengers.  Sometimes I wonder if they sell a special "Pizza Drink" that is a pizza liquefied into smoothy form.  

Sampling Some Ukrainian Beef and Horse Jerky...Yes, Horse Jerky!

I think my statement "I could talk about jerky all day long" from this video might be the truest thing I've ever said.  Here I sample beef and horse jerky we discovered in one of the distant grocery stores in Kharkiv.  The results may surprise you.
    

The Chocolate of Lviv With A Little Barry White

Recorded at Lviv Handmade Chocolate.
     

Another Rotary Dinner

As part of Laura's Rotary Fellowship which brought us to Ukraine, she regularly attends Rotary Club meetings all around the country.  I even tag along sometimes to sit there and look pretty as everyone speaks Russian or Ukrainian.  We recently went to a meeting of one of the Rotary Clubs in Kharkiv and, as is usually the custom, also had a wonderful meal. 

The vodka and wine bottles were front and center throughout the long table.  

There were many, many, many speeches during the meeting and many, many, many toasts followed each of those speeches.  Many of those bottles above were empty by the end of the dinner.  The gentleman speaking in this photo is a retired policeman and it was his birthday.  

The dinner started out with several appetizer dishes which included picked herring and onions.  I felt at home eating this one but it wasn't as good as my pickled herring from Norway.  I couldn't persuade Laura to try this one though.

There was also blood sausage and a bacon-like meat that was very very fatty.

The main dish was plov with a buttery pastry crust that made it sort of like a pilaf pie...along with...

...some beef kebabs...they were as tasty as you would expect.  

And to end the meal there was a multi-layered bread custard dish that concluded things just right.  

Shangri-La in Barabashova Market

While visiting the vast maze that is Barabashova Market here in Kharkiv we knew somewhere down one of the isles was a Vietnamese restaurant that we had heard good things about.  Much like Shangri-La it would be an impossible journey to a paradise that, although it was there, could be impossible to find.  But wouldn't you know it, it look about five minutes of random twists and turns down the aisles before Laura said "I think that's it."  If pressed, neither of us would have been able to retrace our steps to find it again.  

The lower level functions as an Asian market but when you make your way upstairs there was, for lack of a better word, a "cafe court" of food that is very difficult to find in Ukraine.  There were windows that sold Chinese and Indian dishes but we went for the Vietnamese windows.  

The ordering processes was that you would walk up to the window and a Vietnamese women standing on your side of the window would help you with the order [the women in the black shirt in the below photo].  She would then shout it through the windows to the cooks in the back.  A Ukrainian woman would then bring you the food once it was ready.

Laura went with Pho soup which she would often order when we lived in Seattle.  

 I tried a chicken dish which had a hint of curry spices.

And we also had communal rice and cabbage salad to share.  

It was all delicious and the best Asian dishes we've had abroad.

A Piece Of Kharkiv Found In America

In my postings about the city I live in I spell it "Kharkiv" which is the Ukrainian spelling.  You can also find it spelled as "Kharkov", as in the football team Kharkov Metalist, which is the Russian spelling.  In translating from the cyrillic spelling you could also simplify the spelling to simply "Karkov."  I bring this up because while we were back in America for Christmas I stumbled upon Karkov brand Vodka.  

The image on the front of the bottle sort of resembles Blagoveschensky Cathedral here in Kharkiv...

...but as you can see it's not quite the same.

When we found the bottles on the shelves Laura and I looked at each other and said "there is no way that this was made in Kharkiv" and sure enough it was bottled right there in Minnesota and so they have only adopted our town's name for their brand.

Karkov Vodka has the reputation of being the "college student's vodka" as bottles are often the cheapest vodka you will find on the liquor store shelves...and of course they also had a mini size too.