Restaurant review: Divo, 12 Waterloo Place, London SW1
A little over a century ago my Jewish forebears fled that part of Eastern Europe then known as the Pale of Settlement. Having eaten at Divo, described as London’s first luxury Ukrainian restaurant, I now know why. It was to escape the cooking.
One part of the menu, described as Divo Specials, lists dishes which ‘were traditionally served to visiting dignitaries and the nobility of the Ukraine’. I can only assume Ukrainians have a healthy disdain for their dignitaries.
Top of the list is the Cossack Pork Sausage. Any comedic value obtained from the innuendo in that name was completely trounced by the appearance of the dish itself. The lengths of gnarled, under-seasoned gristly sausage arrived atop a lattice covering a ceramic bowl, which held a reservoir of burning liquor. Heaped on the sausage were crisp onion rings, which were immediately ignited by the flames from below. ‘Now you blow it out,’ the waitress said, her anxiety rising with the plumes of smoke. ‘Now, please! Now!’ This was the Red Army’s scorched-earth policy realised in food.
Though not as bad as a side dish of ‘buckwheat with fried onions and lard’. It had a weird plastic flavour which reminded me of the taste you get when you blow up a new lilo [air mattress -ed.]. This is not a good thing in a plate of food.
And then the bad food started coming.
Geez, just give me a “to-go box” for the pumpkin and I’m outta there!
Ahhh… memories of high school.
Do you know I spent a long easter in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city this easter. The whole trip was almost a complete disaster, cancelled flights, terrible hotel rooms, attitudes of natives ranging from suspicious at best, to downright hostile at worst.
The one exception was the food – it was the BEST food I’ve eaten in my many European travels, the restaurants we ate in on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were exceptional (although I had done a ton of research before we went). The most stand-out was my main course on the Friday evening which consisted of triangular parcels of veal stuffed with cherrys – wow! Obviously these London restauranters are clueless – the only *good* thing about the Ukraine is the food (and my uncle Andreov lol)
Pete
My first wife was / is a Yuke. The best thing was the two Christmases and New Years.
No I didn’t like Ukrainian food. Ma-in-law told me many stories of how hungry they were during Stalin’s regime and later of when she was in a forced labor camp (she still had the tattoo on her forearm).
The food was more plentiful than good. And it wouldn’t matter how much you ate, she would insist you have more. If you gained a pound looking at the food then it was OK to eat. Everything would be swimming in fat and grease. Butter would be piled solidly on top of everything. They never drank beer or milk; it had to be hard stuff; vodka, whiskey, scotch, rum, it didn’t matter as long as it was 80 proof.
I never understood her hatred of the Jews. Even though the Nazis did a great deal of harm to her, it was the Jews she blamed for Stalin’s atrocities against the Ukraine and the Nazi invasion. I assumed her attitude was in line with the pogroms of an earlier era. Prejudices die hard sometimes. After the war, she moved to Canada as a displaced person.
Kosher Jew reviewing Cossack Pork Sausage… and you expect antisemitism to go away? LOL
Dear Uncle Dave,
“You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!”
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Wikipedia:
http://tinyurl.com/yrhp9a
Kind regards,
RBG
Why RGB, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a while on this blog. Thank you.
And in reply: “I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you moldy rogue, away!” and “Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you filthy bung, away!”
1000 points if you can name where this came from without using a search engine.
#7, Uncle Dave,
Whew !!! At least he didn’t call you a Republican.
#7, Uncle Dave,
I’m thinking Henry IV, but hey, what do I know.
I think it could also be ole Zeb Harrison sober. The old coot that lived two doors downhill from the school in the morning and uphill from the school in the afternoon. I could never understand why he hated us kids so much for merely throwing rocks through his windows and leaving flaming bags of shit on his doorstep.
#9: You are right! Henry IV, not your old coot.
7. UD: Suspect it wasn’t Michael Richards, but I have to fess up that I would have inadequately answered Long John Silver.
RBG
My favorite resturant reviewer, Micheal Winner of the Time’s of London reviewed this place, he was only slightly kinder than this review.
I was in Kiev 3 years ago and had some fantastic Ukranian food. Never been to a Ukranian resturant outside the Ukraine.