Ukrainian vs. Indian cuisine

Recently, I found that despite the fact that many Ukrainians live here, in Edmonton, there are only three Ukrainian restaurants >. Compare this number to the number of Indian restaurants in our city. There are 25 Indian restaurants in Edmonton! (http://www.edmontondining.com/)

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I began to think about the reason of such state of affairs, and I want to share with you what I think about this situation right now.

First of all, although the Ukrainian-Canadian community in Edmonton includes about 10 percent of the city's population, the number of Ukrainians that want to visit any Ukrainian restaurant is not big. I think, traditionally, Ukrainians prefer to eat at home, going outside only at special occasions. Moreover, during these occasions, Ukrainians mostly prefer to choose the cuisine different from their own, for example, Indian, because they eat their traditional Ukrainian meal every day, and want something different and special when they decide to eat somewhere outside their houses.

Secondly, for Canadians that are not Ukrainians, this kind of restaurants doesn’t look as attractive, as Indian or Asian restaurants because many Ukrainian dishes are very close to the regular Canadian dishes, and Canadians can find them at stores or cook by themselves. At the same time, some specific dishes, such as borsch, are so specific that not everybody can enjoy them.

Finally, prices in Ukrainian restaurants are usually higher than in other restaurants with the same level of service and quantity of food. Plus, for the same price, you can receive bigger portions of meal and variety of food in other restaurants. At the same time, many Indian restaurants, for example, suggest people a buffet style, while Ukrainian restaurants don’t do it. Thus, for a certain price you can try a variety of dishes in Indian restaurants.

Next time, I want to introduce you several traditional Ukrainian dishes that you, may be, want to try if you decide to go to an Ukrainian restaurant.