American Pizza Company. By delivery only: 228-7812.
Bagels are as Jewish as circumcision: You’re just not a Jew without them. Or so Americans think.
But in Ukraine, in spite of its large Jewish population and deep Jewish roots, a bagel is a foreign entity. While in New York people argue for days about which of the myriad bagel shops churns out the best round ones, the average Kyivan has never even seen a bagel.
The conclusion is clear. If Eastern European Jews invented the perfect food, at some point they forgot about it, and today the bagel ceases to exist in the Old Country Р in that same way that there is no Chop Suey in China.
While the lack of bagels is, in our view, KyivХs loss, it does make it easy for us to choose KyivХs best bagels: American Pizza Company. In fact, as far as we know those are KyivХs only bagels.
Currently, ex-pats are the primary beneficiaries of this service. For one Р as we mentioned Р the bagel to Ukrainians remains not a common and convenient snack, but a bizarre and curious object. For another, American PizzaХs bagels are generally available by delivery only Р and delivery still strikes many Ukrainians as the height of laziness.
Will time, media coverage and exposure to voracious ex-pats bring Ukrainians over to the pleasures of oven-baked dollops of the divine dough? With a monopoly on the market, Matt Wagner over at American Pizza sure hopes so.
ItХs encouraging to see that Matt the monopolist isnХt resting on his laurels. We unanimously agreed that American Pizza Co. did the job right.
First of all, they resisted the Yuppie-inspired, BruegerХs-instigated trend sweeping America, exemplified by such sacrileges as chocolate-chip bagels, ТeverythingУ bagels and pizza bagels. Instead, they offer a straight-forward (traditional, if you will) selection of seven types: plain, onion, garlic, salt, cinnamon raisin, cheese and poppy seed. ThatХs no-nonsense. We like that.
Second, unlike many Kyiv establishments that cater to Westerners, AmPieCo doesnХt jack up the price to some absurd levels just because itХs American food. A dozen bagels go for Hr 24 (less than 50 cents a bagel), and 200 grams of cream cheese costs Hr 20. Yeah, itХs a bit pricey for Philadelphia cream cheese, but weХre a long way from Philly.
Of course, none of this would mean anything if the bagels werenХt any good. But they are. It is hard to imagine anyone, aside from the occasional snobby, fresh-off-the-boat New Yorker, taking issue with the fluffy goodness of these bagels. Their size is just right, their holes vary from thumb sized to invisible and they come right to your door Р sometimes while they are still warm.
Now, if only all of Ukraine’s notorious monopolies worked as well as American Pizza Company ….
