Ukrainian Village

I’ve ate at my share of places along Denman Street so I was surprised to discover that I’ve never seen or heard of Ukrainian Village before. It’s located next to Holy Guacamole.

Sign outside.

Couple happy hour and food posters.

The special cherry perogies sounded divine. Next visit!

The inside has more tables than you’d think. The waitress (aka. the only one working the front) did a great job.

Interestingly, they have a happy hour menu (3:00pm to 6:00pm, weekdays only), lunch specials and a dinner menu.

The dinner menu is split into soups, salads, appetizers, specialities, main dishes and desserts. Click here to see the menu (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

Trip #1
We dropped in on a Tuesday evening (around 6:30pm).

Chicken soup ($6.95)
Served with noodles or wild rice. We opted for the former; it also came with real chicken, dill and a homey broth.

Good but a tad small for the price.

Ukrainian dinner ($22.95)
Two cabbage rolls, six perogies, Ukrainian sausage, vegetables, sour cream and mustard. This is the best way to try a sample of everything. Cabbage rolls were excellent; essentially, meatloaf wrapped in cabbage. The meat was incredibly juicy.

We were able to get an assortment of perogies and tried all three options (potato & cheddar cheese, potato & fried onion and sauerkraut). They’re homemade with a thicker wrapper (which we liked) but the filling was a tad bland. It needed a dip into the sour cream.

The Ukrainian sausage was satisfying and perfect to dip in the slightly spicy mustard.

Roasted duck ($18.45)
Stuffed with apples and served with mashed potatoes and vegetables. The apple is pretty subtle; I could only taste it on the skin but the duck was a solid portion.

The two dollops of mashed potatoes underneath were light and fluffy while the coleslaw, red beets and pickle rounded things off nicely.

Trip #2
We dropped in on a Friday evening (around 7:00pm).

Vegetarian dinner ($20.95)
Two vegetarian cabbage rolls, six perogies with vegetables and sour cream. N was feeling the vegetarian option but if you’re picking between the two, we preferred the Ukrainian dinner option.

The cabbage rolls were healthy but missing a much needed sauce.

Perogies hit the spot and again, you get three types. Side of coleslaw and a gherkin added some crunch.

Siberian pelmeny ($17.45)
Ground beef and pork with sour cream and hot tomato sauce (aka. sweet tomato chili). Everyone’s first time trying pelmeny (Russian stuffed dumplings). Delicious! Filling was plump, texture had hearty bite and filled with all meat. Would definitely get these again.