ukrainian food and other things foreign

On the Chinatown bus now, leaving New York, on my way to spend the weekend in Delaware with family. Had a foreign-filled latter half of the week, which is good as I promised I’d expose myself to other cultures a bit more this year (actually, engage with is probably the right term as expose has that nuclear or asbestos poisoning feel to it).

ukrainian diner, veselka

Wednesday night was spent with Dutchies Elvira and Barbara (although B is really from Croatia). We had a nice dinner at Ukrainian Diner/Café Veselka. Lots of vegetable-based soups on the menu, borscht the Ukrainian staple, I guess. We ended up each ordering soup and a plate of pierogis to share. Pierogis as it turns out are stuffed dumplings which are either fried or boiled, very similar to Japanese gyozas in appearance.The fillings we got ranged from sweet potato to meat, cheese to spinach and cheese. They came with applesauce (appelmoes in Dutch), sour cream (which no one touched), and some veggie based dip.

It was a nice simple dinner actually. As with typical Dutch dining, the conversations were lively. The day's adventures, the food's taste, politics, religion, immediate and not-so-immediate plans, cultural idiosyncrasies, families. No regard of time. No cellphones on the table. No leftovers. No attitude. No urge to leave the place as soon as the bill was there. Felt strange yet quite refreshing having a cozy meal in the city. Tapas bar with some flamenco's already in the docket for next week.

Chelsea gallery hopping

Thursday night was spent gallery-hopping in Chelsea with officemates Lisa and Julia. Lisa is of Chinese heritage. Julia (or Yulia) originally from Russia. It was an interesting night. Some art I enjoyed. Some I thought were OK. But the most interesting part of the gallery-hopping was the diversity of people who seem to have made a Thursday night ritual of jumping from one art place to another. Lots of characters obviously. One of them an Andy Warhol friend whom I let Lisa and Julia talk to—coz he was a bit too weird for my comfort zone. But it was good to see the amount of different New Yorkers I'm not accustomed to seeing and it's great having Lisa and Julia around coz they're the type who'd talk to just about any stranger (a trait not common to a Filipino like me, unfortunately or fortunately).

Office holiday party

Last night was spent with officemates and people in the Euro network. It was our (belated) holiday party. Though delayed, it was definitely much better than last year's. Nice live bossa nova band over cocktails. Good food—I enjoyed the lamb and the roast beef (and ok, the really chewy chocolate chip cookies too). Lots of dancing. Not a fan of huge crowds obviously but it was good to see everyone loaded in varying degrees and dancing their brains out on the floor to 80's, hiphop, salsa, merengue. It was good to see as well, the diversity of people's backgrounds—Cuban, British, Polish, Italian, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Dominican, Filipino, Korean, etc... Cars were there to bring people home after the party so that was nice too.

I should be in Delaware in about an hour. Should be good to recharge the batteries and finally get over the jetlag. Should be nice to get a needed dose of things familiar and Filipino.