Last year I blogged about the cute new patisserie opened in SOHO. They had lots and lots of vegan desserts, all amazing as you can see here. This year we had a lovely Ukrainian feast at Cream.Dream, as they expanded their range to include traditional dishes. I will talk about everything we tried on the day. It was a three-course meal with only traditional Ukrainian dishes.
First, we had borscht. This is a soup with grated veggies and it’s thick. It is served with sour cream and a mix of garlic and dill. It was very interesting. It has some similarities with soups we grew up with in Romania, but they are very different at the same time. I will make borscht at home without any doubt.
We took advantage of their offer of wine tasting. We tried 3 glasses of Ukrainian wine. On the left was my favourite, Tinta – Odesa black. It has a rich flavour, just amazing. In the middle is Biologist, a wine with a patriotic story. They did not have labels after the full-scale invasion, so they put a blue tape and wrote on it the name and the year. After that they added another yellow tape underneath, to create the Ukrainian flag. I liked the wine very much. Lastly, on the right, is an orange wine – Arbina. I never had something like that, so it was very interesting. They use the seeds too to make this wine.
Next we had Varenyky filled with vegan meat. These were lovely. I enjoyed them very much. They also have many other kinds of savoury varenyky, with fillings such as cabbage, onions, potatoes. I am looking forward to try more.
Lastly, the honey cake. It is a Ukrainian dish which was appropriated by the russians. In this perspective, it is similar to borscht. The yellow chocolate on top had a few cells filled with maple syrup or something similar.
I loved the honey cake. We had it with Carpathian tea.
Overall I think these dishes are a must try for anyone who is a foodie and likes to see how traditional dishes are like from that part of the world. For me, as a Romanian, it was fascinating to see how similar and dissimilar were these dishes to ones from Romania. These are made by Ukrainians and served by Ukrainians, so do make sure you are showing them support by visiting them if you are in London or on a visit to London.
These look great!!! I would very much like to try the savoury dishes!
This looks beautiful and elegant. I also liked your observations on the similarities and differences between the Ukrainian and Romanian foods.
All of this looks amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had borscht, though I do like beets. Seems like the versions I’ve seen have been blended a little more smoothly. And though I’m not a wine drinker, I do find the one on the right to be interesting. I’d be willing to try it. I think my favorite thing here is the “honeycomb” on the top of the dessert!
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Borscht is not blended, but the veggies are grated. It’s not something that I am familiar with, although it seems less hassle to grate than chop.
The orange wine was lovely and very good, and very unusual.
I loved the dessert, not too sweet despite its name.