The Post's readers weigh in on a topic of grave importance
ra grandmother, chained to her stove way back there in Queens, New York, slicing and cooking and dicing the beets in great raptures of ecstatic nurturing energy. Bringing the grandmotherly love.
At least, that’s what we thought when we were kids. We also would have given her credit for making the best varenyki, the best paska, the best shuba, the best kutya, the best compote, the best mushroom gravy and the best freakin’ marshmallow-and-jelly-on-white-bread sandwiches on the planet, and we would have fought you if you’d denied it.
But then we got a little older, and with experience our borshch horizons widened. We started patronizing the great New York City Jewish delis, for one thing, where they know how to make borshch. (If you’re ever on Amsterdam Ave., in fact, stop into Barney Greengrass and try the cold variety.) Then we moved to Ukraine, which was even more disillusioning, as far as our grandmother was concerned. There’re a lot of beets here, and a lot of old women. Which is to say, there’s a lot of good borshch.
Well, our aging relative in Queens fell a little further in our estimation. She’s just gonna have to get used to it.
Beet the Devil
So who makes Kyiv’s best borshch: Let’s go to the polling data.
But first to get a couple things out of the way.
“It’s not easy to get two native Ukrainians to agree on what Ukrainian, or red, borshch is,” one poll respondent scolded us. “Red borshch can be like Russian-Jewish borshch, cream of beetroot soup, as sold in Jewish delis in packet form all over the U.S. or Europe. Or it can contain no beetroot and be based on tomato (my personal favorite). Or it can contain an arcane mixture of tomato and beetroot. Or pork ribs. Or veal. Or beef. And it must contain beans. Or no beans.”
Indeed. But when we said “borshch,” we meant what most people think of when they think of borshch, which is the red kind, predicated on the humble beet, and not sorrel-based green borshch, which we also admire, but that ought to be a subject for another time. Got that?
Moving right along, this same respondent claimed to like the red borshch at Khutorok, that floating restaurant on the Dnipro. Khutorok also received a vote from one other reader.
“Surprisingly,” wrote yet another, “my husband swears by Patio Pizza’s borshch. He says he hasn’t tasted borshch like that since his childhood, when he used to visit his babushka in Poltava. I’ve never tasted it myself, as it has meat in it. I still haven’t found a good vegetarian borshch.”
The lack of good vegetarian borshch was alluded to by at least one other reader, a Canadian native, who called the meat-free soup “hard to come by” in the capital. “That’s why,” she continued, “I hereby nominate the restaurant in the Simferopol train station, which has excellent, affordable, delicious, and completely vegetarian borscht, an excellent treat before hopping on the train back to Kyiv.”
A certain Sveta, meanwhile, proclaimed that the best borshch in Kyiv was her own, bar none. “But I vote against Puzata Khata borsch,” she added, “as it’s crap! Don’t go there!”
Good heavens. At any rate, hers turned out to be rather an eccentric opinion, as other poll respondents liked Puzata Khata just fine.
“One of the best places to find delicious borsch and overall Ukrainian food is Puzata Khata on Besarabska,” we were told. “It’s fast and tasty.”
That same reader also suggested Lola Kukhnya, near the Lva Tolstoho metro station, even though the latter is “significantly more expensive than at Puzata Khata.”
And one more reader sent us somewhat out of the city center, to the Pirohovo open-air museum, where U Pani Aneli and the eponymous Pirohovo restaurant, she said, serve the best beet-based soup.
Rock the Beet
But who finally won?
Butterfly got a couple of votes. So did Domashna Kukhnya – which we kind of suspected would take the top prize, given how much turnover the place does, and given how it seems like you can’t avoid it. Kozak Mamay, one of our favorites (there’s something just too sweet about sitting out on that nice patio on a fine summer night), got several nods, too. So did Chasing Two Hares. So did Tsarske Selo, up there yonder by the Lavra.
But the winner turned out to be Taras, that pleasant establishment located on a parcel of public land in the middle of Shevchenko Park. The people have spoken, and we can’t argue with that.
So Taras wins. Beets the competition. Beets back all rivals. Beets them down. You can’t beet Taras.
Whatever. In the eyes of our reader’s, Taras serves the city’s best borshch.
Enough.
Results:
1. Taras
2. Puzata Khata
3. Kozak Mamay
This week’s winner is Ed Southern.
Congratulations!
Please contact Vika Barchenko at the Post to claim your prize.
