If an Estonian ever offers to make you a pizza, watch him like a hawk. 3 weeks ago in Tallinn, we were in a massive rush and needed a quick, convenient takeaway for the whole family. Luckily we were opposite a pizza place so I ran in, and every pizza on the menu seemed to have mushrooms on it, which my daughter hates. Finally found one which was supposed to be topped with ham, olives and red onion, which sounded fairly safe. Got back to the car to find the tw@ts had covered it in fcking pineapple instead of olives. No time to go and swap it, so ended up standing there in the street, picking the pineapple off. It was actually a pretty nice pizza apart from the offending tropical fruit horror. Fast forward 3 weeks, and tonight I'm in Tallinn on my own, in a hotel in the proper arse end of the city. The only place to get any food for miles around is another pizza place. This time I decided I'll have my mushrooms as there isn't a whiney child to throw a strop about them. Get back to my crappy hotel, take a bite, and it turns out that the mushrooms aren't fresh, but salted. Anyone who's been to Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia etc will know that salted mushrooms are pretty ubiquitous as a beer or vodka snack and are pretty good, but very very salty. Therefore completely unnecessary on a pizza, especially when there's ham to do the salt duties. Luckily there was a craft beer shop with a well stocked fridge next to the pizza place, so it's not all bad. I'll be back in Estonia again in a fortnight. Probably won't get a pizza
If my time in ex soviet countries taught me anything, it was fill your suitcase with food from home. My ex was Ukrainian, and her grandmother once made us borshe I think it’s called? Like a really watery soup? Honestly it was ******* dishwater at best. I enjoyed the gyros??? They seemed pretty popular and they had them for sale on every corner.
Scribbled a note in my Lonely Planet. The best pizza I think I've ever had was in Lyon, completely unexpectedly. It was an unassuming takeaway place near where I was staying so I only went there out of desperation because I'd come back late and everywhere else was closed, but I had a pizza with thin slices of potato, some sort of alpine cheese and woody herbs (I think mostly thyme). It was an absolute work of art.
Borsht really shouldn't be watery at all. The Russian version is a thick beetroot soup with pork or chicken and sour cream. The Ukrainian version is even thicker, as they usually make it with a ham or bacon stock. Far too fatty for my taste, but very far from watery. Maybe your ex's babushka just didn't like you very much?! The gyros type thing on every corner is shawerma. Nowadays they even serve it in upmarket restaurants, but back in the early 2000's it was 50p a kebab and indeed sold on every street corner. Pretty nice, but always a bit of a lottery. Ask @Chef Tyke what happened to his stomach when he came to visit me in St Petersburg in 2005, and literally lived off them for a week, buying them from a kiosk outside the tube station, which very obviously had rats living in very close proximity.
I could be wrong mate, I never tried it. I know it was served with some really hard type bread, I ate the bread but the consistency of it made it look watery to me. Like you could see thick strands of what I assumed was cream but then a clear bit? A dunno, but it really didn’t get my taste buds going. haha I can imagine! Hygiene didn’t seem high on the menu at some of the places I saw. Especially in Dnipro! Not sure if you’ve ever been there but Jesus Christ that place is like nothing I’ve seen on earth. Tripadvisor recommended the bus station as a tourist attraction (serious).
Pizza posts are much underrated on days like today. Cheese, ham and salami / chorizo my personal fave.
Not been to Dnipro but was in Donetsk for the England games in Euro 2012 where we definitely went solid on the 50p chicken kebabs! Didn't get ill, though that might have had something to do with my wife's uncle forcing us to drink a shot of peppered vodka with BREAKFAST every day! Personally, I quite like eastern European food, but you definitely need to know what you're doing, otherwise you can get some very nasty surprises. Mostly involving the amount of dill they throw on pretty much everything except desserts.
I once had a pizza with a fried egg on it at an Egyptian pizzera in Monza and spent the whole night throwing up until my girlfriend called the Red Cross who gave me an injection in my arse. Oh and a couple of years later I had a spaghetti alla carbonara at a completely different location with similar results. I don't do eggs in restaurants now.
No, was quite away from the old town this time unfortunately. Literally just a stopover on my way back to the UK.
