Borscht

It was 5:30 pm on a Wednesday night when Ernie and I walked out of our favorite children’s thrift store, having scored a nice sweater and two cute bottoms for $9 total, and the piéce de resistance, one of those standing stool things that lets your kid stand safely at the counter for $15.  They retail for $75.

Feeling pretty good with our haul, and a little flush with cash from having sold our CD collection, about 250 CD’s for $100 bucks, earlier in the day and more than a little hungry, Ernie suggested we go out for dinner.  I readily agreed.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  As we were standing in the parking lot, Ernie looked up and said “Hey, why don’t we eat at that Ukrainian restaurant right there?”

Me: Are you kidding me right now? Ukrainian? I don’t think they are really known for their cuisine.  Like what is it? The only thing that comes to my mind is Borscht.  And I am pretty sure I don’t want to eat Borscht.  And I say that while I am pretty sure I don’t even know what Borscht is.  What about Pasta Fazool? That’s right near here.   (Visions of eggplant parmesan danced in my head).

Ernie: No, this place is good. I ate here before.

Me: When?

Ernie: 25 years ago.

An eye roll and a few sighs later, we agreed to at least look on Yelp and see what the ratings were.

Ernie:  Look at that! It gets a 4.9 rating!

Me:  Among the 33 people who ate here.

We decided to look at the menu next. 

Me: Yup. There it is. Borscht.  And. OMG.  Veal Brain Chop? Cracklings and Pork’s Blood and Buckwheat?  Beef Liver? Umm, I think this one is a hard pass.

Ernie: Come on! Look, there’s a Chicken Kyiv.  And Pierogies.  You like those things. Let’s be a little adventurous and try something different.  Plus it’s BYOB.

I was looking for any way out of this.

Me: Well, we don’t have any wine with us.  Sooo…

Ernie: There’s a State Store right here.

Dang, I was out of excuses.  And I thought, well, I do like Chicken Kyiv and Pierogies.  Sure.  Why not.  It could be fun to try something different.  Ernie and I have eaten at quite a few different places and they’ve all been great experiences.  Especially the Ethiopian restaurant we ate at when we were in Brooklyn.

We bought a bottle of wine and went into the restaurant.

It was completely empty.  Hmm. Well, I thought. It is 5:30 on a Wednesday, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Ukrainians, like other Europeans, don’t eat dinner at 5:30.

The waitress approached and seated us.  Her English was not that great, but we managed.

She must have been trained in the, “Would you like fries with that” mode of restaurant service.  Only, it was “Would you like Borscht with that?” Also, “Would you like some black bread with lard with that?” “Maybe some cracklings?”

I decided to try the Borscht.  The ingredients sounded like everything I like. Chicken, beets, potatoes, beans, carrots, and onions.  What’s not to like? 

Answer: whatever the spice that’s in there, that’s what’s not to like.  But it was like one of those things where you are eating it and you think, oh this is good!  And then, you go, oh wait, what is that flavor? I am not sure I like that whatever it is.  So you take another bite. Oh this is good. Oh wait, no it’s not. And so it goes until the soup is almost all gone.

I still don’t know what the spice is but it took a full 24 hours for the taste to leave my mouth despite multiple tooth brushings and mouth washes.

Ernie got the mystery meat Bograch soup.  The description was five types of meat smoked pork, pepper, potato, carrot, and onion.  When he asked the waitress for clarity on the five types of meat, she could only answer, “Yes, meat.”

I tasted his and it was delicious.  It did not have whatever spice was in my Borscht.

As we were eating our soups, I asked the waitress if she could bring us an ice bucket for our wine.  It took several go’s at this to convey that no we didn’t want ice for our wine, we wanted to put our wine on ice. In a bucket.

“Ah,” she said, “yes”.

She then picked up our wine and walked away with it.

Me: Ernie, where is she going with our wine.

Ernie: I have no idea, but I am ready for a refill.

I figured she was just going to come back with our wine in a bucket.  But no. She does not reappear for about 10 minutes and when she does, she does not have our wine in hand, let alone, in bucket.

Me: Excuse me, but can we have our wine back?

Waitress: Ah yes.

Waitress comes back with our wine and an ice bucket.  Go figure.  Not really sure what that was all about.

I see Ernie buttering his second piece of black bread with lard.

Me: Oh, did you like that lard? What does it taste like?

Ernie: What? Lard?

Me: Yes, that’s not butter.  It’s lard.

Ernie: I thought it was some kind of butter.

With that he puts the bread and lard down.

Ernie: Yeah, I think I’ll pass on the second slice.

About 15 minutes into our having been seated, two women enter the restaurant.  That’s it.  Just them and us.  The only people the entire time we were there.

Both of these women were speaking Ukrainian.  I figured that was a good sign.  You know an ethnic restaurant is good if the people of that ethnicity dine there.

As they were seated next to us (with 20 other empty tables in the whole, rather spacious place), we smiled and made a bit of small talk, along the lines of have you been here before, what do you recommend, etc.  At one point, the waitress brought them a little plate of something.  We asked what it was and the one woman said, it’s a little plate of pickles.

I love pickles, so I said, “Oh, I didn’t see that on the menu, but I will ask for that too. Thanks!’

I asked the waitress if I could also have a plate of the small pickles, and pointed to the neighboring table.  The waitress wasn’t understanding, so the woman spoke to her in Ukrainian, translating it for me.

Waitress:  Ah, you want the pickles? You can only have it as it is on the menu.  This one (as she holds the menu and points to it). 

I read the description. It was $18.00 for some pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, mushrooms. $18? I didn’t want all that. I just wanted what the other woman had, a small plate of pickles.

Me: Oh! Well, never mind then.  Thank you, anyway.

The other woman said something in Ukrainian to the waitress, who then disappeared into the kitchen.

Ernie: Looks like you have to be a regular customer to get that dish, huh?

Me: I guess so.  But you know, that customer said something to the waitress. I wonder if she’s going to be bringing me a plate of pickles?

Sure enough, yes, she did.

I turned to the other woman and said, “Thank you so much. I appreciate it! She smiled, and said, “No problem.”

The rest of the meal was fairly uneventful.  The Chicken Kyiv was pretty good, but the chicken was this huge log about the size of Texas.  I am still trying to figure out how you get a chicken that big.

As we were getting ready to leave, the nice other woman who asked the waitress to bring us the plate of pickles came over and said, “One good deed deserves another” or something along those lines.

At that point, she whipped out a business card and asked me to come visit her at her nail salon.

Honestly, it was one of the funniest and strangest dining experiences we’ve had.  Anthony Bourdain would have relished it, I am sure. And you didn’t even need to leave the country to experience it.

And now? I mostly know what Borscht is.  And if I ever need to get my nails done, I know where to go.  How’s that for a night out to dinner?