Ukrainian Cuisine

Ukrainian cuisine justly enjoys great popularity far beyond the borders of the country.

Ukrainian borshch with pampushky (garlic bread) is especially popular and well-known throughout the world. It is made of fresh vegetables (potatoes, cabbage, beet, carrots, tomatoes), dressed with ground bacon with garlic, parsley and fennel. This combination adds marvelous aroma and flavor to borshch. There are about 30 kinds of Ukrainian borshch. This dish is very rich and nutritious, thick as a pea soup and very nourishing, it can be a good substitution of both the first and the second course. In cold and wintry weather hot borshch is the thing that will warm you and sustain for the whole day.

Ukrainian cuisine is rich in meat dishes, made of pork: domashnya kovbasa (home-made sausage), kruchenyky (meat rolls), sichenyky (ground meat fried with spices), kholodets (aspic), buzhenina (cold boiled pork), pechenya (roast meat) and others. And of course the first place belongs to salo (bacon), dear to the heart of every Ukrainian. It is served fresh, salted, smoked, it is used to stuff meat to make the dish jucier.

Kasha (gruel), varenyky (dumplings), halushky (boiled pieces of dough), mlyntsi (pancakes) are widespread in Ukraine. An important place in national cuisine is taken by fish dishes: carps in sour cream, carp with honey, fish sichenyky (ground fish fried with spices), perchpike with mushrooms and crayfish, and other dishes.

It’s impossible to imagine Ukrainian cuisine without olia — sunflower oil with an original smell of fried sunflower seeds. It’s a must for salad dishes.

Everything Ukrainian land is rich in (poppy-seeds, nuts, honey, fruits), is used to make sweets.

Most of dishes in Ukrainian cuisine used to be cooked for specific holidays and rituals. Hrechanyky (pancakes made of buckwheat flour) and varenyky (dumplings) — traditional dishes for the Holy Shrove Tuesday. Pies with meat, cabbage, berries and other types of stuffing were prepared for the main holidays.

Ukrainian horilka (vodka) and various nalyvky and nastoyanky (aromatic fruit liqueurs) are considered to be traditional alcoholic drinks.

But describing advantages of Ukrainian cuisine, we shouldn’t forget that Kharkiv is a traditionally international city. Here you may find various national dishes and products being combined in the menus and on the grocery shelves in a most unusual way.

Restaurants in Kharkiv

You may find plenty of good restaurants in Kharkiv, and there is no sense in recommending a certain of them: cuisine differs very much from one place to another, all dishes (mainly of national, European, Uzbek, Caucasian, East-Asian cuisine) are unusual and tasty. It’s impossible to describe all of them — you’d better go and taste yourself. Nevertheless, let’s try to highlight some key points.

Mainly traditional European cuisine is served at such restaurants as BMW, Raiskiy Ugolok, Dionis, Greenwich (English cuisine), Metropol (French cuisine), Milena, Poznan, Florentsia (Italian cuisine). Shynok and Dykanka restaurants will please you with Ukrainian cuisine. Genuine Vietnamese cuisine is served at the Vzletayushchiy Drakon restaurant, Chinese — at Pekin, Japanese — at Rosinka and Yaske.

As a rule, restaurants may be booked for banquets, buffets, business lunches or delegation receptions.

Often a restaurant is part of a bigger recreation centre (such as Zolotoi Lev, Nostalzhi, Split and others). At you service there are entertaining shows, billiards, sauna, and in some cases, hotel rooms.

Restaurant menus indicate prices for 100 grams of product, and you should take into account, that your helping may be bigger, and the price respectively higher. Tips usually total 5–10 %, sometimes they are included into the bill.

As a rule, restaurants open at 11:00 a.m., many of them work till the last customer leaves.

Cafes and Bars in Kharkiv

You can have a rest and a cup of coffee in one of numerous Kharkiv cafes. You will be offered a wide choice of kinds of coffee and the ways of its preparation at cafes like Kofein, Kofeman and others.

The most popular cafes with the youth are Restoranchik dostupnoi vkusnyatiny, Konyky, Zhyli-byli. Stylish interiors are their characteristic features; even menus are arranged with a certain share of humour here, and you may combine the dishes by yourself.

Unfortunately, in Kharkiv, there have remained very few special places, where the well-known writers, poets, artists, and just interesting people used to gather. They have been replaced by new comfortable and cosy cafes and bars with modern interiors and with a high-quality service, but unfortunately, without the creative spirit, Kharkiv used to be so famous for. One of the last survivors is the Pyrizhkova snack bar at the corner of 46 Sumska Street. Its interior and assortment haven’t changed since 1960s.

Kharkivites are fond of beer and drink it in large quantities. Good beer can be found in wide assortment in many bars of the city.

Abundance of beer is completed by classical alcoholic drinks, speciality cocktails, set off by traditional European and national cuisine.

Night Сlubs in Kharkiv

Kharkiv night clubs have an interesting peculiarity: they do not follow a definite musical club style, as most European clubs do, but are divided into three categories: establishments belonging to the first category play Euro Pop, the second one provides Disco House and Progressive House, and the third category includes the range of clubs with a genuine club music. Some clubs also offer parties with guest DJs.

Oskar, 100 pudov, Pyatyi Element are considered to be youth clubs. They are characterized by the the first two categories’ music formats as well as by stylish interiors (glass, brick, metal). Kulturnyi Tsentr-XXI, a big club intended for variety shows, is also mostly popular with young people, except when there is a fashion show or some other event.

Older people can be seen at clubs like Bolero, Metropol, Argus, Split, Zolotoy Lev.
The Zhyvot night club, situated on Melnykova Street, is designed in the European manner, for people interested in the club music (from Trip-Hop to Drum and Bass). Alternative films are shown at Zhivot on Sundays.

You may enjoy striptease shows at Armageddon, Argus, Zolotoy Lev clubs.

Casinos

A lot of things have been written about this kind of entertainment. Classical literature is full of card gambling — just recall Pushkin, Dostoyevskiy, Tolstoy…

You can plunge into the excitement of gambling at any of Kharkiv casinos. Without a doubt, these will be exciting and unforgettable moments, and you are going to discover some gambling magic, something that goes beyond the rationality of man’s reasoning.