You're reading: A bite of America

It’s been a while since Kyiv saw a burger joint open that tastes and looks like it’s straight from Main Street America.

Despite its cookie-cutter appearance, it’s what drew Kyiv Post to Beefy’s, an unimposing, country-style greasy spoon that serves up nothing but classic American fares like burgers, chili dishes, and Philadelphia cheese steak sandwiches.

If you haven’t been to the U.S. for a while, the taste of their chili cheese burger (Hr 75), combined with shredded salad, chili and processed American cheese will bring back memories. As will another American innovation, the self-serve salad bar, the three kinds of Tabasco sauce on offer with other condiments, and the pitcher of ice that comes with drinks.

The little details, like the side of coleslaw not drenched in mayonnaise, mingle with the taste to bring you closer to the real deal than Kyiv has seen in a while.

Next up was Beefy’s chili cheese nachos (Hr 89), a perennial Tex-Mex dish. While superior to Arizona BBQ’s nacho platter, which on two occasions came to the table with soggy, stale tortilla chips, Beefy’s version lacked heat. Not in the sense that the generous amount of jalapeños didn’t deliver, but in that it seemed never to have been heated in the first place. The cheese sat cold and unmelted atop the pile of chips and chili. Kudos are deserved, however, for the perfect sour cream to salsa to guacamole ratio, as well as the overall portion size, which is almost as important to Americans as the taste. While not necessarily better for your waistline, Beefy’s nachos are easier on your wallet when compared to Arizona’s (Hr 115).

Then Kyiv Post took a gamble with their Philadelphia cheese steak sandwich (Hr 75). Naturally, we didn’t come to test the “drip” factor or expect thinly-sliced sautéed ribeye beef and melted provolone cheese or Cheez Whiz to be part of the ensemble.  But it did measure up to K-town’s arguably best cheese steak composer at Golden Gate Pub (Hr 97). It had lean cuts of beef with sautéed onions and green peppers nestled inside a buttered French bread loaf that gave it a sweet yet rich taste. But the bread was on the harder side and dry and should’ve been closer to the Philadelphia roll which is long and thin, and doesn’t have the fluffiness of French bread.

So let Kyiv Post be the first to say that a new contestant has entered the competition for the best burger in town.

Beefy’s Burgers & Chili
65 Chervonoarmiyska St.
(Olympic metro station)
Hours: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
044-287-7755; 067-999-8881

Kyiv Post chief editor Jakub Parusinski and staff writer Chris Miller contributed to this feature of Food Critic.