Some time back I undertook a trip from my bucket list – drive the entire length of Ontario’s Highway 401. The 401 starts near Ontario’s border with Quebec in the east end and ends in Windsor in the west, and is close to 1900 kilometers both ways.
While in Windsor, which connects to the USA, I visited an Ukrainian restaurant for lunch.
This is a special restaurant. For starters, the Ukrainian Restaurant is almost hundred years old – it was opened in 1927 by Pearl Hawrylak.
In 1968, Anna Momcilovic bought the restaurant and has been running it since. The now 80-plus woman is the chef, server and cleaner.
The restaurant is small: the entire restaurant was basically a medium-sized room. It reminded me more of one of the houses or one of the old motels I have visited when I was living in western Europe – wooden wall cabinets, barstools with plastic sides etc., Even the diner tables and the seats with their pink casing would remind one of a bygone era.
Excellent Ukrainian Food in a 100-Year Old Restaurant
The food was excellent. I had ordered borscht soup and cabbage rolls.
The soup had that cooling color with the right amount of well-cooked vegetable chunks.
The cabbage rolls were great. The filling was juicy, not dry, and adequately spiced. And, as one can see from the photo below, it was a very generous portion.
I chatted with Anna and she explained to me how she handles all the work, some of which is shared with her son who comes in regularly to help her out. But most of the work is done by her.
I loved the place and the energy of the woman. And, for a 100-year old restaurant, the place looked neat.