Travel West Ukraine

Each region of Western Ukraine has its own attraction. The Ivano Frankivsk area is very good for relax in Carpathian Mountains. People of the Carpathians keep an old traditions in food, music, fashion and craft. The Ternopil region is a “green state” because of it's very clean ecologically environment. Besides, this region has 30% of all the ancient castles in all of Ukraine. And finally, Lviv. Lviv is a city of Museums and Concert Halls and simply great place to experience a rich culture.

Ukraine Is A New World’s Known Culinary Destination!

Finally! Ukraine is being recognized as culinary destination for travelers!

In 2012, the Kryjivka Restaurant from the city of Lviv, western Ukraine, made to the Top 5 Secret Restaurants of the World – rated by TripAdvisor.

Also, the city of Kyiv, which is the capital of Ukraine, named one of the 7 Places to Travel for Food in 2013, according to Huffington Post: “Get acquainted with Kiev's distinct cuisine at a low-cost cafeteria-style eatery, where dozens of national dishes are offered up daily like beet and herring salad and stuffed cabbage rolls. Embrace the kitsch of peasant garb, wagon wheels and stuffed farm animals at traditional-style restaurants and dig into pork fat, pickles and thick cuts of meat. Don't miss the varanyky, Ukraine's famous stuffed dumplings are boiled or fried, best served with pork cracklings and smothered in sour cream."

As I person of Ukrainian origin, I totally and completely agree with everything what the Huffington Post said, except two things.

First, they spelt the name of the Ukrainian capital in a Russian manner which is Kiev; Ukrainian spelling/pronunciation of the name of the city is Kyiv.

Second, it is suppose to be varEnyky, not varAnyky, guys! (varenyky are Ukrainian stuffed dumplings).

But overall, it is really nice and it is a great reason for Ukrainians to be proud that their country finally became a world’s recognized food destination! Even if the recognition sometimes is kind of weird and unusual :) Yes, weird and unusual – I am talking about TV-show World’s Weirdest Restaurants on foodnetwork.ca The host of the show, a famous chef and cook book author Bob Blumer has visited Ukraine in November 2012. He filmed couple local West Ukrainian restaurants for his show.

One of the restaurants – the Old Mill restaurant-museum – is in my home city of Ternopil (I am originally from western Ukraine). When I told my husband Ron (he is Ukrainian-Canadian) the news that Old Mill is going to be showcased in the World’s Weirdest Restaurants, Ron just was wondering, “Hmm, but what is weird in this restaurant? This is a beautiful place, with excellent traditional West Ukrainian cuisine, with lots of artifacts, great music and atmosphere! What is weird in it?”

You know, I absolutely agree with my husband – this is a wonderful restaurant! Ron and I and our friends and family were there numbers of times, and we always had amazing culinary memories about the place and the atmosphere. But, I said to Ron, “You see, what is normal for us, people of Ukrainian ancestry, it can be weird for people from different cultures.”

For my very personal opinion, the word "weird" is not really suits this restaurant properly. “Unusual", “one of the kind”, “extraordinary” – these are more suitable expressions for the Old Mill restaurant-museum from Ternopil. Well, that’s what the World’s Weirdest Restaurants show and his host Bob Blumer do – finding “…the planet’s most eccentric, extraordinary, eclectic restaurants…”

Anyway, I am looking forward to see the Old Mill from Ternopil on foodnetwork.ca – dying to find out, what was on the weird side, and what was on the unusual and extraordinary side in the restaurant, for Bob’s vision and opinion. So far, watching these short videos from the shooting of the World’s Weirdest Restaurants show in the Old Mill restaurant-museum, I can tell that it was a lot of fun to do it, and looks like Bob Blumer had a really good time learning Ukrainian dances and enjoying Ukrainian music, doesn't he?