KIEV, Ukraine -- Hundreds of Ukrainian opposition activists are protesting rising prices and demanding higher wages and pensions.
About 1,500 demonstrators gathered outside Ukraine's legislature in central Kiev on Thursday, also urging President Viktor Yanukovych's government to lower household utility bills and taxes.
Electricity and gas bills for Ukrainian families have risen sharply in recent months as the government seeks to reform the natural gas, tax and banking sectors.
The reforms have been set as a condition for receiving International Monetary Fund aid. Ukraine is in desperate need of loans after its economy was very hard hit by the global crisis.
The activists vowed to hold more protests until their demands are met.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Device Cafe is a hidden gem well worth trip outside center
Kyiv’s restaurant scene never ceases to amaze. You can easily eat at an extremely posh place in the city center, and leave it feeling angry and ripped off. At the same time, you might stumble upon an obscure eatery in some far-off part of Kyiv that instantly becomes one of your favorites.
This time, I am glad to be spreading the word about one of the city’s hidden gems – Device Cafe which is located almost at the very end of the red metro line off Zhytomyrska station. I was lucky to have discovered the place along with other members of the Ukrainian Connoisseur Club (TUCC) on Feb. 24.
When I drove up to the place, it wasn’t easy to spot the restaurant. Its sign blended in with others on a messy-looking building in a typical residential area mall that also houses a supermarket, shops and cafes.
As I pushed open the door to Device Cafe, I was genuinely mystified as to why Connoisseur Club management, known for its refined tastes, chose this spot for the first TUCC meeting this year.
My encounter with a security guard downstairs was not a pleasant one: He claimed there were no free hangers, so I’d have to find another solution for my coat. But I as walked up to the main dining area, I started to thaw in the restaurant’s welcoming ambience. My coat was promptly taken by one of the waiters. Once I sat down, I was offered a drink. It was getting better by the minute!
Overall, Device Cafe has several halls. One boasts a ceiling dotted with Swarovski crystals to imitate a starry sky. Another is a lounge with an arch-like transparent ceiling. The third one is a winter terrace with huge windows, kept warm all year around. The TUCC meeting was taking place in the fourth room – the main hall with a bar, and that’s where I made most of my observations.
Device Cafe's art nouveau interior is pleasantly eclectic. Its furniture is all in retro style: chairs with rounded backs, tables and low sofas with cushions. While the background colors were soft beige and ivory, the contrast was added by red, green, brown and striped patterns on couches and chairs. A chic shiny chandelier hung overhead and the walls were busily decorated with very different types of pictures: large paintings of sunny blue, pink and yellow colors, photographs of restaurant guests, and several black-n-white pictures of Audrey Hepburn, including a still of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” passionate finale.
As the waiters brought out the bread and butter, it was immediately clear we were dealing with an original chef. There was nothing too strange about bread – though it was absolutely delicious – but instead of regular butter plate, each was served a syringe-like plastic container with several layers of butter of different colors (and different tastes) inside. Indeed, as the chef Victor Tymchyshyn confessed himself, he was fascinated with the latest culinary technologies he learned while training abroad. Clearly, Device Cafe became his field of experiments. From what we saw and tried that night, those experiments were usually perfectly successful.
The first to arrive was a mise en bouche, courtesy of the chef. It was a veal carpaccio stuffed with Parma ham and truffles. It was as good as I, a big carpaccio fan, have ever tried, with thin slices of Parmesan, Parma and truffle adding that special flavorful touch.
Next we were served a cold appetizer dubbed “creme brulee,” but it was actually made of seafood. Basically it was an absolutely delicious mousse of crab meat and salmon, garnished with an airy heap of Italian herbs, and tobiko caviar.
Hot appetizer was likewise a fishy one – a combination of several kinds of seafood including shrimp, mussels and tuna, all cooked to perfection and served bathing in a tender creamy sauce with shrimp and saffron flavor. The garnish was a somewhat odd mixture of mashed potatoes and wasabi.
After a break and some orange sorbet, came the time for main course, veal prepared by a very complex method at low temperature, stuffed with truffles, and sprinkled with a Spanish sauce with morels. The meat was such an extraordinary pleasure to the palate that it makes my mouth water even now as I write these lines. It was aptly combined with mashed potatoes with Mascarpone cheese and poppy seeds and some ratatouille.
“Black Square” chocolate dessert was served as a perfect grand finale for our extraordinary dinner. The look of the dish itself was a food design masterpiece: a cube of chocolate mousse topped with vanilla espumas (foamy sauce-like substance) stood in the neat square of a strawberry coulis (a French sweet sauce), accompanied by a mandarin sorbet stick in velvety glazing and a tiny jar of vanilla sauce laying on its side, with lid open. As for the taste – let me say, it was just as beautiful.
Not only did Device’s chef do a great job – the rest of staff tried to impress the gourmets. While the restaurant has its own sommelier, on the night of our dinner he was assisted by a representative of the Sommeliers of Ukraine Association, who made a full-scale professional presentation for each of the drinks of the night: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc of 2008 from New Zealand – perfect for the seafood appetizers, Italian Argenina Chianti Cassico, 2006 – a great companion for the meat, and Armagnac Saint-Vivant going fine with the sweets.
Finally as an additional treat that night, we were offered to sample the products of Device Cafe’s very own confectionary, including tiny cheesecakes, macaroons, truffles and much more. In conclusion I can only wish the restaurant to keep up the good work and gain new patrons who can appreciate its extraordinary cuisine, and not be put off by its not-quite-so-central location.
This time, I am glad to be spreading the word about one of the city’s hidden gems – Device Cafe which is located almost at the very end of the red metro line off Zhytomyrska station. I was lucky to have discovered the place along with other members of the Ukrainian Connoisseur Club (TUCC) on Feb. 24.
When I drove up to the place, it wasn’t easy to spot the restaurant. Its sign blended in with others on a messy-looking building in a typical residential area mall that also houses a supermarket, shops and cafes.
As I pushed open the door to Device Cafe, I was genuinely mystified as to why Connoisseur Club management, known for its refined tastes, chose this spot for the first TUCC meeting this year.
My encounter with a security guard downstairs was not a pleasant one: He claimed there were no free hangers, so I’d have to find another solution for my coat. But I as walked up to the main dining area, I started to thaw in the restaurant’s welcoming ambience. My coat was promptly taken by one of the waiters. Once I sat down, I was offered a drink. It was getting better by the minute!
Overall, Device Cafe has several halls. One boasts a ceiling dotted with Swarovski crystals to imitate a starry sky. Another is a lounge with an arch-like transparent ceiling. The third one is a winter terrace with huge windows, kept warm all year around. The TUCC meeting was taking place in the fourth room – the main hall with a bar, and that’s where I made most of my observations.
Device Cafe's art nouveau interior is pleasantly eclectic. Its furniture is all in retro style: chairs with rounded backs, tables and low sofas with cushions. While the background colors were soft beige and ivory, the contrast was added by red, green, brown and striped patterns on couches and chairs. A chic shiny chandelier hung overhead and the walls were busily decorated with very different types of pictures: large paintings of sunny blue, pink and yellow colors, photographs of restaurant guests, and several black-n-white pictures of Audrey Hepburn, including a still of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” passionate finale.
As the waiters brought out the bread and butter, it was immediately clear we were dealing with an original chef. There was nothing too strange about bread – though it was absolutely delicious – but instead of regular butter plate, each was served a syringe-like plastic container with several layers of butter of different colors (and different tastes) inside. Indeed, as the chef Victor Tymchyshyn confessed himself, he was fascinated with the latest culinary technologies he learned while training abroad. Clearly, Device Cafe became his field of experiments. From what we saw and tried that night, those experiments were usually perfectly successful.
The first to arrive was a mise en bouche, courtesy of the chef. It was a veal carpaccio stuffed with Parma ham and truffles. It was as good as I, a big carpaccio fan, have ever tried, with thin slices of Parmesan, Parma and truffle adding that special flavorful touch.
Next we were served a cold appetizer dubbed “creme brulee,” but it was actually made of seafood. Basically it was an absolutely delicious mousse of crab meat and salmon, garnished with an airy heap of Italian herbs, and tobiko caviar.
Hot appetizer was likewise a fishy one – a combination of several kinds of seafood including shrimp, mussels and tuna, all cooked to perfection and served bathing in a tender creamy sauce with shrimp and saffron flavor. The garnish was a somewhat odd mixture of mashed potatoes and wasabi.
After a break and some orange sorbet, came the time for main course, veal prepared by a very complex method at low temperature, stuffed with truffles, and sprinkled with a Spanish sauce with morels. The meat was such an extraordinary pleasure to the palate that it makes my mouth water even now as I write these lines. It was aptly combined with mashed potatoes with Mascarpone cheese and poppy seeds and some ratatouille.
“Black Square” chocolate dessert was served as a perfect grand finale for our extraordinary dinner. The look of the dish itself was a food design masterpiece: a cube of chocolate mousse topped with vanilla espumas (foamy sauce-like substance) stood in the neat square of a strawberry coulis (a French sweet sauce), accompanied by a mandarin sorbet stick in velvety glazing and a tiny jar of vanilla sauce laying on its side, with lid open. As for the taste – let me say, it was just as beautiful.
Not only did Device’s chef do a great job – the rest of staff tried to impress the gourmets. While the restaurant has its own sommelier, on the night of our dinner he was assisted by a representative of the Sommeliers of Ukraine Association, who made a full-scale professional presentation for each of the drinks of the night: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc of 2008 from New Zealand – perfect for the seafood appetizers, Italian Argenina Chianti Cassico, 2006 – a great companion for the meat, and Armagnac Saint-Vivant going fine with the sweets.
Finally as an additional treat that night, we were offered to sample the products of Device Cafe’s very own confectionary, including tiny cheesecakes, macaroons, truffles and much more. In conclusion I can only wish the restaurant to keep up the good work and gain new patrons who can appreciate its extraordinary cuisine, and not be put off by its not-quite-so-central location.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Eat yourself healthy – Russian-style
Russian cuisine has yet to really gain a place at the world's top table. Despite a surge in deluxe Moscow restaurants, encouraging top chefs to put their own signature on classic dishes from borsch to caviar, the old images of queues and food shortages have been hard to shake off. Then, in this health-conscious era, a reputation for heavy, hi-carbohydrate, calorie-packed dishes hasn't exactly propelled staples of Russian food into the global food industry.
But all that could be about to change, thanks to an American dietician. Dr Jonny Bowden is committed to promoting the healthiest available natural foods and caused a stir with his guide to the "150 Healthiest Foods on Earth." Realising that many of these foods were ridiculously obscure and hard to buy, he later produced a shortlist of readily-available, often overlooked sources of valuable nutrients. And, at numbers one and two, were those great russian staples beetroot and cabbage.
His hot list became a smash hit in the US, becoming one the New York Times' most widely read items of 2008. So what's so great about beets and brassica?
Beetroot: described by Bowden as ‘the red spinach,' it's rich in folate and betaine which combine to reduce the risk of artery damage and heart disease. At the same time that distinctive red pigment has been linked to lower cancer rates in laboratory mice. But there's a word of warning - cooking beetroot reduces its potency. Instead of slurping down the borsch, for maximum effect use it in a salad.
The traditional Russian beetroot salad (salat iz sviokly) has the grated root mixed with garlic and mayonnaise. Popular additions include walnuts, apple or prunes - another one of Bowden's top 10 foods. Other alternatives include the shuba salad, with fresh herring under a creamy layer of beets, potatoes and more mayo or the ever-popular vinegret, where it joins carrot, potato, gerkin, cucumber and peas.
Cabbage: if ever a veg had an image problem, the humble cabbage with its associations of institutionalised slop is surely the one. Overcooked and foul smelling school dinners hastened its departure from many kitchens. Yet in its raw crunchy state it is both healthier and more appetising. With just 22 calories in a cup of chopped cabbage, it's a great part of a weight-control diet. Moreover, those calories pack a real nutritional punch at the same time, most notably thanks to high level of cancer-fighting sulforaphane.
The classic Russian cabbage dish is the soup ‘schi,' but if you have a bit of time and want to avoid cooking out some of those nutrients, a pickled cabbage and carrot combination works well. Arguments rage over the best recipe, but the purist's form involves one part grated carrot to four parts grated cabbage, mixed with salt and pummelled to draw the juice from the vegetables.
The mixture is then pushed down hard into a jar filled to the shoulders, and allowed to ferment in a cool room for three days.
WHERE TO TUCK IN
Another big advantage of these old favorites is that they're not expensive. Whether eating in or eating out, they're easy to find and cheap. Good starting points include Moscow's vegetarian restaurants, such as Jagganath (Ulitsa Kuznetsky Most) where bowls of various salads can supply a quick dose of what's needed. Beet lovers might also stop off at the Prime Star sandwich chain, where a beetroot and cream cheese salad goes down well. Supermarkets tend to stock pre-prepared salads, or the ingredients to make your own, while most markets will have somebody selling a pickled cabbage mixture, often home-made.
His hot list became a smash hit in the US, becoming one the New York Times' most widely read items of 2008. So what's so great about beets and brassica?
Beetroot: described by Bowden as ‘the red spinach,' it's rich in folate and betaine which combine to reduce the risk of artery damage and heart disease. At the same time that distinctive red pigment has been linked to lower cancer rates in laboratory mice. But there's a word of warning - cooking beetroot reduces its potency. Instead of slurping down the borsch, for maximum effect use it in a salad.
The traditional Russian beetroot salad (salat iz sviokly) has the grated root mixed with garlic and mayonnaise. Popular additions include walnuts, apple or prunes - another one of Bowden's top 10 foods. Other alternatives include the shuba salad, with fresh herring under a creamy layer of beets, potatoes and more mayo or the ever-popular vinegret, where it joins carrot, potato, gerkin, cucumber and peas.
Cabbage: if ever a veg had an image problem, the humble cabbage with its associations of institutionalised slop is surely the one. Overcooked and foul smelling school dinners hastened its departure from many kitchens. Yet in its raw crunchy state it is both healthier and more appetising. With just 22 calories in a cup of chopped cabbage, it's a great part of a weight-control diet. Moreover, those calories pack a real nutritional punch at the same time, most notably thanks to high level of cancer-fighting sulforaphane.
The classic Russian cabbage dish is the soup ‘schi,' but if you have a bit of time and want to avoid cooking out some of those nutrients, a pickled cabbage and carrot combination works well. Arguments rage over the best recipe, but the purist's form involves one part grated carrot to four parts grated cabbage, mixed with salt and pummelled to draw the juice from the vegetables.
The mixture is then pushed down hard into a jar filled to the shoulders, and allowed to ferment in a cool room for three days.
WHERE TO TUCK IN
Another big advantage of these old favorites is that they're not expensive. Whether eating in or eating out, they're easy to find and cheap. Good starting points include Moscow's vegetarian restaurants, such as Jagganath (Ulitsa Kuznetsky Most) where bowls of various salads can supply a quick dose of what's needed. Beet lovers might also stop off at the Prime Star sandwich chain, where a beetroot and cream cheese salad goes down well. Supermarkets tend to stock pre-prepared salads, or the ingredients to make your own, while most markets will have somebody selling a pickled cabbage mixture, often home-made.
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