When the Moon Hits Your Eye...

     So, in a followup to my last post, I'll let you know about my experience at Pizza Veterano.

     Saturday evening, I went with David Pervis, his son Josiah, Nathan Crane, and his dad to Pizza Veterano. We rode the metro to Teatralna station and walked to the restaurant. It's located in the Metrograd Mall, directly under Bessarabskiy Market. Other than the big picture windows looking out onto a hallway, it feels like a true, hole-in-the-wall place. I suspect the previous occupants were a sushi restaurant mainly due to the vaguely Asian interior design.

Five-cheese pizza.

     We got there around 7PM. That time on a Saturday night makes it a hopping place. All the tables had customers. We got lucky in that the person at our table was waiting on take-out and not dining in. They don't have a huge menu right now. It's a small place with a very specific service. They have a large drinks menu (alcohol, soda, juice, tea, coffee). But it was tough with all the pizza choices. We chose to go with a 5-cheese pie and a ham/onion/mushroom concoction with white-cheese sauce. Both turned out to be very good. I picked the mushrooms off my piece and enjoyed the rest.
    The cheese pie was excellent. I was surprised that it too had no tomato sauce. I guess one of the cheeses was the sauce. The crusts on both pizzas were very good. They came from the oven rather quickly for how busy the place was that night. In some bites, the cheese was almost too much. But there was a great combination in the pizza. I think I ate three and a half pieces.
     Pizza Veterano also has a small dessert menu. I was too full to have anything but David got a small cheesecake. It was simple presentation. Imagine a glass jar about 4 inches tall. The crust was placed in the bottom with the cheesecake above that and then a cherry sauce put on top. I didn't get a picture but it looked very good.

The memorial wall.

     The appeal of this place right now is support for the soldiers of Ukraine. One wall in the restaurant is a dedicated memorial to the continuing fight in the east of the country. Patches, flags, figurines, pictures, drawings, and thankyou's fill this small wall. The only other restaurant that I know of like this is a BBQ chain in America called Mission BBQ. Both restaurants know the sacrifice and service these men and women give for their countries. It's wonderful that there is such respect among the civilian population to make this place a success.
     Our waiter was actually a veteran from the Ukrainian army. He was trained in medical aid and served in the east for a time. He even spoke a little English. But Nathan's dad talked to him mostly in Russian and was able to translate some of his story.
     So, would I recommend Pizza Veterano? Absolutely. They are still a new restaurant but they have a mission that, I think, will keep them going for many years. The menu offers a range of great choices for pizza. The location is convenient for tourists in downtown. Unfortunately it's a little hard to get to if you don't know where it is. Random walk-in business is almost non-existent. If they move above-ground in the coming years, I think they will grow rapidly. I definitely want to go back.

     And for your viewing pleasure, I'll include this video of what we saw after dinner outside the Teatralna metro station. I think this is a regular thing. There were competing groups in this area. One had a small band playing dance music for the crowd of older people who wanted to dance. Around the corner was a large group of singers. They had to compete for volume just to be heard. The guy in the white sport coat and black trousers seemed to be having a lot of fun.