(Kiev, Ukraine)

As Grant and I wait out the snow in our cozy little corner in the city, we have explored our surroundings in other ways, namely culinary. We hope you excuse the forthcoming restaurant and cafe reviews but we seem to have hit the jackpot in the amount of cafes and trendy restaurants popping up everywhere. What’s surprised us most is how good and fresh the food has been in almost everywhere we’ve been to in Kiev. And the coffee has not disappointed us.

On this particular day, we decided to explore the botanical gardens. It is hard to tell what is under all this snow so we plan to come back and take photos on a sunnier day.

After visiting the garden, we decided we needed a coffee break and stepped into a restaurant that we still aren’t sure what the name is:

I think the restaurant is new because the first time we ate here, there were balloons floating near the ceiling and confetti on the ground. I highly recommend the cream of mushroom soup here, it is the best I’ve ever had! It includes three types of mushrooms and mushroom pasta with sour cream. They serve this soup with these items arranged in a bowl and then pour the piping-hot cream of mushroom broth over everything in front of you. This is a thick soup but I have gone back specifically to eat this! Sadly the photo was taken after the soup was poured over the mushrooms:

Grant ordered:

We love this restaurant. Every time we’ve been here, they offered us a free treat. Last time, it was a complimentary chocolate meringue cake slice (a Ukrainian specialty) and this time, they offered us shrimp pitas. This was after they had accidentally delayed putting in my mushroom soup order. In our experience, the customer service here is really good.

The ambience is very trendy and modern, with a sort of “bookish” look. As soon as you walk in, there is a row of colorful books on a shelf as decor. They have a full bar and there are Renaissance-style paintings hanging on the wall which, upon closer inspection, is a stately painting of batman and other such comic book heroes. The staff here speak english and they have a menu in english as well. This restaurant fills up around dinnertime so it’s good to plan accordingly.

With bellies full and warm, we made our way back to our apartment rental in the snow. Now, if only we knew what the restaurant was called…

(Update: Grant identified the restaurant after an arduous search online – it’s called JZL and is located on 36, Velyka Vasylkivska Vulytsya)

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