October 29th, The Food

Arun would probably be upset if I didn’t discuss food/ restaurants of Odessa. The city has quite the multitude of restaurants. My first meal here was Thai (if you know Arun, you wouldn’t be surprised.) There are plenty of Chinese and Italian places; and of course McDonalds. There is quite a bit of Turkish food here- a lot of shwarma stands; much to Arun’s pleasure. There is also a lot of good sushi available, surprisingly. There are, as well, some disappointments. Arun has not been able to find a dim sum place and this has driven him to conversations about returning to the States immediately just to satiate his craving. We tried a vegetarian Indian restaurant that was awful (potatoes with turmeric…then covered with cheese.)
Restaurants also seem to have pretty rapid turnover and what is here one day may disappear the next.

Finding restaurants aren’t the problem; the struggle tends to be with reading the menu. We wind up at certain restaurants over and over because they have English menus and for that convenience alone, we are willing to limit our experiences. Once my Russian picks up a bit more, I’ll begin to venture out. I just don’t want to wind up with meat on my plate on accident!

One thing we’ve learned is that Ukrainians don’t eat much. It really must be because they have so little disposable income; because all we ever see them do in restaurants is smoke. Every once in awhile they order some coffee; but mostly they smoke. We come home with cigarette smoke all over our clothes; ad that is one of the biggest aggravations of living in Europe. Locals spend hours in restaurants talking and lighting-up; and generally not eating.

Arun and I like the portion sizes here a lot though. They’re the ‘right’ size and not the oversized portions we Americans are normally used to. The reality is that eating out is a luxury in this country. There’s really no “middle-class” restaurants. There’s pretty much fine dining (prices that make us cringe) or very low-brow places to grub (places that make us cringe); and nothing in between.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it with food.