Take everything you love about Mediterranean-style grilled meats and add that to the Ukrainian’s love for hearty home dishes, surrounded by a feeling of family and country.
Those are the not-so-secret ingredients for LavShash Kebab restaurant, which opened this past spring in Old Pasadena.
Before Russia’s war against Ukraine, Valerii Voskanian, and his wife Katrina owned several restaurants in and around Kiev and Kharkiv, the nation’s largest cities. Those restaurants served a mix of Armenian and Ukrainian dishes, based on Valerii’s skill with grilled meats, which he had developed in Armenia.
“There we cooked on an open fire,” Katrina explained, “which no one had done before.”
As war raged in their homeland, they headed for America, and rolled the dice in Pasadena. While their local cooking is restricted to gas-powered grills, the cooks still perform a kind of magic with chicken, beef and lamb, as well as the vegetables.
We sampled a number of dishes created especially for our visit, as the restaurant was coincidentally celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day.
The Ukrainian menu features an array of grilled meats and vegetables in small, medium and large family sizes.
As Katrina explained, “We’re a family here, and this is a place for families.”
We began with two special refreshing dried fruit drinks—Kompot (Compote) and a sparkling Yuzu. Both were delicious alternative standard juices.
While Lavshash prides itself on the usual kebab dishes, we were offered an assortment of dishes from both the holiday Ukrainian menu, as well as a family style assortment of the grilled meats and vegetables.
But we’ll get to that.
I’ve always posited that every culture has a hot dog and a burrito (think about it), but you can add one more item to that list—pizza. The Ukrainian version is a large covered pie about 12 inches across filled with cheese and sliced, pizza-style. There is no tomato involved, and certainly no pineapple.
But it arrived hot and steaming and melty, and somehow we managed not to devour it all and spoil dinner. This was followed by a Ukrainian Goulash served atop some of the most remarkable mashed potatoes ever. This version of goulash—found in many Slavic countries over noodles or rice—featured delicious chunks of grilled beef atop the aforementioned remarkable mashed potatoes.
The largely Ukrainian customers that evening—some even dressed in traditional outfits—devoured the Goulash as well as the familiar and comforting Borscht beet soup, and the cabbage salad.
The star of the show was the grilled platter, which featured substantial chunks of succulent grilled chicken, beef and lamb chops, along with potatoes, mushrooms, and eggplant, all grilled on that magical grill in the back there. Half of that platter came home with me, as the portions are seriously substantial.
LavShash Kebab is an inviting, comforting spot that also happens to prepare great food. I personally would be happy to devour just the mashed potatoes and goulash every day.
The warm and inviting atmosphere is just a bonus.
LavShash Kebab Restaurant is at 115 E Colorado Blvd.,
Pasadena, CA. (747) 252-5291. www.kebabrestaurantpasadena.com.
