Yet another food blog

A few months ago a new Ukrainian restaurant has opened in the city center one block from Planty park.

Of course I couldn't help but visit it right away, and had visited it many times since then

The owners are the couple from (the russian-occupied) Crimea, who decided to open a restaurant after few years of working and living in Krakow.

The place is quite small, but cosy, and the owners are very nice and hospitable

Now to the food.

On the one hand, they are trying to use the original Ukrainian products where they can (especially those hard to find in Poland, such as unrefined sunflower oil, or salo), but on the other hand there are some questionable decisions they took in regard to their recipes.

For example, their borsch (12zl) was with chicken meat.

Not that it wasn't tasty, it really was (and pampushka with garlic was nice), but that is not what I would expect to have in my borsch

The next thing that basically shocked me - the cabbage in my "varenyky with cabbage filling" (14zl) was actually sauerkraut(!). In my opinion this is absolutely unacceptable for Ukrainian varenyky (it should be just stewed cabbage, not stewed sauerkraut), but the owner explained this is "for the Poles who are used to this kind of fillings in their pierogies". Omg!

Unfortunately this is a plague that taints and kills too many ethnic quisine restaurants in Krakow and Poland in general. The owners change their recipes in order to appeal to Poles, which makes it just another place to eat "Polish food named differently".

For example, out of the tens of "Chinese" restaurants in Krakow there is only one that offers the food resembling the actual Chinese. The rest are mainly "fried pieces of meat with potatoes and surowki named after a Chinese dish".

But now again, in Hutorok they also have varenyky with savory (not sweetened, but salted) cottage cheese (16zl), or with the sour cherries (18zl) - these are next to impossible to find in Poland, and this is why I had to reconcile with sauerkraut varenyky in the end.

Since a few weeks, when the weather became quite warm in Krakow, they also offer okroshka cold soup, which is rather soviet than Ukrainian, but it's tasty and resembles popular in Poland chlodnik, so no wonder it is there in the menu

And yes, this is another point dragging the place down my "charts" - it's soviet. Or rather post-soviet. Starting from the big part of the menu, and ending with the soviet movies playing on their wall-mounted TV.

Conclusion: I have really mixed feelings about this Ukrainian (or should I call it post-soviet?) restaurant, they have both strong and weak points, but overall I would recommend them and will certainly visit again (and again). One should just choose wisely what to order.

Recommended

Hutorok

Czapskich 1

12:00-21:00

 

So there's a place in the underground pass between the train station and Planty called Kalejdoskop.

The owners are a family from Donetsk, and they serve Ukrainian home-made food.

The place itself is nothing fancy, a few tables and a bar

 

I've ordered soup with dumplings (sup z halushkamy) and dumplings with cabbage (varenyky z kapustoyu)

These things I miss sometimes in Poland, because the Polish pierogi are usually made with mashed potatoes+cottage cheese or sauerkraut+mushrooms, while Ukrainian varenyky are usually made with plain mashed potatoes or plain sauteed cabbage (fresh, not pickled).

The soup appeared to be not just with dumplings, but also with meatballs. It's been a long time since I've eaten something as good and tasty.

The "big portion" (12zl) is really big and is more than enough for a lunch actually.

But since I didn't know, after the "big portion" dumplings (15zl) I was fed up to the ears

 

I'll surely go for smaller portions next time (10zl/12zl correspondingly)

 

Central location, good Ukrainian food, recommended

Kalejdoskop

Westerplatte 1

FB

 

I am Ukrainian, and today is Independence Day of Ukraine.

So that, no doubt, I just had to visit a Ukrainian restaurant ;)

There are a few Ukrainian restaurants in Krakow, and a couple of days ago I've read about this one somewhere.

So why not Chicheri? Let's go

Located in the quiet Dajwor street in the old Kazimierz district, close to the Old Synagogue, the place is quite new - I think they opened some time last winter

It looks like your usual Krakowian cafe and (thank god) is missing the "popular" for Ukrainian restaurants pseudo-rural style

I was greeted by a waitress who spoke not-so-good Polish, so I switched to Ukrainian right away

Still, the first thing I heard when entering the place was some shitty russian cheap pop music (OMG!), which in a few minutes changed into the shitty Ukrainian cheap pop (/facepalm).

Ok, so maybe they have a good lunch? I've ordered one. And it appeared to be typically Ukrainian.

For 18zl I've had:

- Ukrainian borscht

- Varenyky with potato filling + cracklings + sour cream

- Kompot

 

Borsch was ok, I can do much better ;) but not bad

 

Varenyky could also be better (and bigger in size), a sour cream portion was too small and it ended half way through the dumplings.

Kompot was ok

So, in brief, it was okayish lunch with Ukrainian "flavor" for small money.

Overall, recommended.

Chicheri
Dajwor 2a