Kyiv's Best Burger: Arizona BBQ Everything you'd need to know about fixing up a great American-style burger, from A to Z.
ein of “Austrian navy,” “Italian beer” or “American elegance.”
There’s just no hamburger tradition in this country. Most any babushka will inflict a kotleta on you if you let her, but while it will vaguely resemble a hamburger, it won’t be one. A kotleta, in which the ground beef is mixed in with an over-proportion of breadcrumbs, tends to be an abomination, anyway. Like much Ukrainian meat, it’s cooked to an almost sublime state of desiccation, and hits your plate as a dry, hard, miserable little brown thing. The beef kotleti we’ve eaten, we’ve eaten under duress, watched over hawkishly by the muscular, sour Trans-Carpathian crones who forced them on us. Sometimes Ukrainian restaurants call them “hamburgers” on their menus, but they’re liars. Do you understand?
Two things differentiate a hamburger from your fried kotleta: First, there’s the way burgers are cooked. They’re supposed to be thrown on a grill at high heat, and seared on both sides, thus sealing in the juices; then the heat’s to be turned way down, so the inside slow-cooks to a nice, medium pink.
It’s a very simple way of preparation: that depressing brown-gray tone that comes from overcooking beef should be nowhere in evidence. (We could also mention that hamburgers should be cooked by big fat teamsters in the Milwaukee suburbs, at midsummer, wearing gym shorts, Packers t-shirts, “Kiss the Chef” aprons, and sunburns from spending all day on their motorboats drinking Pabst, listening to baseball and trying to swamp pussies on sailboards, but we suppose that’s too culturally specific.) The two dominant colors of the burger are supposed to be charred black (outside) and pink (inside). An overcooked Ukrainian brown tone should have nothing to do with a hamburger.
Second, a hamburger should be served the way our Milwaukee friend would serve it. Forget that Atkins Diet crap, or the Euro-style bean sprouts: You need the biggest, whitest, fluffiest bun; and the fried onions that coat your mouth with grease; and melted cheese; and the pickles; and the tomatoes and lettuce, and everything else. Some bacon wouldn’t hurt. If you’re missing more than one of those components, you might have something, but a hamburger it probably ain’t.
With that out of a way, let’s turn solemnly to the results of our magnificent Readers’ Poll about Kyiv’s best hamburger.
So who serves Kyiv’s best hamburger?
Answered one respondent: “I’m not American. I don’t like hamburgers. I don’t eat hamburgers. How about some other item of food? Steaks, nachos?”
The best steaks, in our opinion, are at Soho; the best nachos we’ll talk about when American convenience chain 7-11 someday opens its inevitable franchise on Kreshchatyk. Pick up a 99-ounce Mountain Dew to wash them down.
Another respondent wrote as follows: “I have not found yet any burger place in Kyiv that I would recommend. But then, I did not search too hard.” A spiritual brother of his commented: “Just got back from the States, and had an In ‘N’ Out Double Double while in California, so I’m not really hamburger-hungry.”
One reader suggested the burgers at Garage, while several more puffed the specimen of the hamburger-maker’s craft served at the Golden Gate, one of our favorite Kyiv restaurants. O’Brien’s also received a couple of votes. So did TGI Friday’s, with one enthusiastic reader going so far as to declare the burgers there “yammy.”
But, according to our readers, the “yammiest” hamburgers are to be found at Arizona, that ex-pat hangout in Podil, near the river. Let’s listen to some testimonials from our participant gourmands:
“As an American connoisseur of hamburgers who has lived in Kyiv for five years,” one fellow wrote, “I am qualified (perhaps over-qualified) to respond… Number one is Arizona. They have good meat of the right size on a soft, adequately-sized bun. They serve up this scrumptious feast in a variety of styles accompanied with some of the best french fries in town. As a purist, I like the American burger with lettuce, sliced tomato (not wedges or chunks), thin-sliced onion, mayo, a smear of mustard/ketchup and a couple of dill pickle slices.”
Word up, man. Another reader, meanwhile, wrote of Arizona’s bacon cheeseburger that he’s “salivating thinking about it. At least once a year I finally break down and satisfy my craving for a good old-fashioned American burger at Arizona.”
And yet another reader agreed, writing in: “Arizona, of course! And if I win, I’ll give the Pan Pizza to someone else, since it really sucks.”
Meanwhile, another reader screamed “ONLY ARIZONA HAS THE BEST BURGER IN ALL OF UKRAINE IF NOT EASTERN EUROPE.”
And on and on, until Arizona had slain the opposition. We congratulate Arizona, liking it as we do, but concur with a final reader, who laconically commented that he eats homemade hamburgers only.
To the poll winner, meanwhile, goes the Pan Pizza.
The winner of this week’s poll is Robert Blasig. Congratulations. Please contact Vika Barchenko at the Post to claim your prize.
Arizona BBQ
25 Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska, 416-2438.
Open daily from 8 a.m. till the last customer.
English menu: Yes
English-speaking staff: Yes
