Restaurant Review: Uncle Ed's
UNCLE ED'S UKRAINIAN RESTAURANT 4824 118th Avenue ~ stawnichys.com/uncle-eds Instagram: @mundaresausage ~ Twitter: @MundareSausage Co-Diners: The E.A.T Crew
I would like to start by saying that Uncle Ed's is located in a part of the city that I would never normally visit: Beverly (specifically Beacon Heights). I'm grateful that this restaurant forced me out of my comfort zone and got me to branch out. It's really unfortunate when we only stay in our own little corners and miss out on what is happening elsewhere! Edmonton has a massive Ukrainian population - in fact, it's the largest Ukrainian urban community in Canada. So when VUE Weekly said that Uncle Ed's is the #1 Best Ukrainian 2018 in Edmonton... It's probably pretty good. My personal background is Polish and Russian - two countries that boarder Ukraine - and all of those Eastern European flavours certainly carry similarities between countries. I was looking forward to experiencing comfort food that would remind me of my grandparents. Visiting on a Saturday evening, the restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside. Started in 1986 by the Stawniczy family, its got that strip-mall-from-the-80s vibe (but in the case of restaurants you should never judge a book by its cover). Entering the building, I was surprised to see that the entire right side of the space is set up as a store and deli - mainly a place for them to sell sausage (and other products) from their main location in the town of Mundare. (It's a town about an hour east of Edmonton and they even have a giant 42 foot tall sausage there. It's the world's largest sausage.) Mundare clearly knows it's way around a Ukrainian sausage and so you must definitely visit Uncle Ed's to try the kovbasa. I found the store section very interesting and enjoyed a quick perusal of the small aisles. If you're looking for interesting and authentic Eastern European imports, this is the place. The left side of the room is the restaurant - nothing fancy - just some simple tables and booths. The service was especially wonderful. We had two different servers taking care of us and each of them were warm, friendly, and went above and beyond to make our experience an enjoyable one. I could tell that they take pride in the food and are truly invested in what they do. It feels like a family business in every sense of the word (and they'll happily welcome you into the fold). Eastern Europeans loves them a soup. And yes, borscht is on the menu. But it's the Kapusnyak ($6.00 for a bowl) that caught my eye.
I feel like my Polish grandmother used to make something similar to this and I was in heaven after the first bite. A dollop of sour cream is a must and this soup sang in my mouth. Big and bold, it's dense with shredded cabbage and has a strong pickled sauerkraut flavour to it. There were bits of carrot, beans, and lots of dill. Every bite felt like it was fixing my soul and I would return just to eat this soup again. It might not be for everyone. But it's absolutely for me.
Next we were going straight for "The Real Deal," the traditional part of the menu filled with truly authentic Ukrainian plates. You've gotta try a bit of everything! The #8 Mundare Sausage combo ($14.00 for full size) seemed to really include all of the items that I wanted to taste. Plus I added Mushroom Gravy ($2.00).
For some reason this meal took a really long time to arrive at our table. It seemed like someone forgot to make it. The restaurant was decently busy the entire time that we were there but it wasn't that busy. The server finally noticed that we still didn't have our food and it arrived shortly thereafter. This plate was filled with foods that I was excited to try - some familiar and some brand new. I jumped straight in and tried the famous Mundare sausage, otherwise known as kovbasa. Nicely grilled, juicy, and flavourfully smoked, I can see why this is a great example of Ukrainian sausage. Our server brought two types of mustard to eat it with (hot and mild) and I really loved the way that the hot mustard added a spicy kick. Next, perogies. You KNOW that the menu at Uncle Ed's is filled with perogies, otherwise they would be doing it wrong. Most cuisines around the world feature some sort of dumpling and the humble pierogi are certainly the all-stars of Eastern European cooking. (Who does them? Everyone! Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia...) In Ukraine they're known as varenyky and Uncle Ed's makes four flavours; cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, onion, and sauerkraut. (Each flavour is mixed with potato.) I ordered the sauerkraut ones because that's the type that I remember the most from my childhood. I loved that they came drenched in butter and covered in fried onions and bacon bits (plus served with sour cream, of course). They tasted great! The dough wasn't too thick but had a good bite to it, and each little pocket was nicely uniform. I loved the sauerkraut interior, although it was fairly subtle in flavour (nothing like the previous soup). I enjoyed eating them with the mushroom gravy because that's exactly how my grandmother used to serve them. For the cabbage rolls we were offered either sweet or sour ones and decided to take two of each. Completely different from the Polish cabbage rolls that I'm used to, these ones were much smaller and filled with only rice. I preferred the sour ones over the sweet but both were good. I'm used to a more "involved" cabbage roll, however these were simple and nice. Next were the baked cheese buns, which I've never tried before! Smothered in a creamy dill sauce, these fluffy little pockets known as perishke were delicious. Simple yet tasty, I can see how these could become an engrained memory from growing up. Lastly, the cheese crepes, and I honestly didn't even know that Ukrainians did crepes! Known as nalysnyky, these small rolls were also covered in the same dill cream sauce. Not as extravagant as the French type but still pleasingly thin and nicely savoury in flavour. This plate seemed like exactly what you want. It was a full experience and I happily enjoyed my food journey! We wanted to order dessert but were told that the dessert would take about 10 minutes to be prepared... So in the meantime we ordered MORE perogies. You know, "waiting for your dessert food." The #14 Perogies ($12.00 for full size). It happens to the best of us.
Twelve perogies were included so we were able to sample three each of all of their four flavours. Again, I loved the heaping amounts of butter, fried onions and bacon bits on top. It was great to be able to try all of the different kinds but I still felt that the sauerkraut ones were my favourite. The cheddar were good but feel like an Americanized flavour to me. The cottage cheese and onion ones seemed to lose their flavour a bit and weren't as punchy as the other two. OK so finally we actually did have dessert... And yes, it was more perogies. Blueberry Perogies ($9.00)!
These were INCREDIBLE! The same dough as the other perogies, except these ones are packed full of deep purple, fresh, blueberry goodness. They tasted like a celebration of the season. Plus they were drowning in a pool of buttery, creamy crème anglaise-type sauce. Not too sweet and an absolute must-try.
I was pleasantly surprised by my experience at Uncle Ed's! The visit was filled with familiar, comforting flavours but also entirely new things that I've never seen before. I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what Ukrainian food is and what makes it different from the cuisines of other Easter European countries. The service is absolutely wonderful, the prices are exceedingly reasonable, and if you're looking for authentic Ukrainian food like baba makes, you have found it.