December 3  2009

Alycia’s Catering & Deli

559 Cathedral Avenue

Breakfast Special  $8.50     

(breakfast served until 11:30am)

After a meal at Alycia’s you’ll be ready to pull a plow.

Alycia’s had been recommended to us many times over the past couple of years, but we weren’t able to get in there until now due to renovations. They’d been open for breakfast again for about a month when we traipsed by.

Alycia’s is a Winnipeg staple, so people tell me. A true bastion of Ukrainian cuisine. The décor certainly left no room for interpretation – the white, red and green colour scheme screamed “Ukrainian” as much as it did “Christmas!” You couldn’t fake that.

The Ukrainian farm breakfast looked great, so while another breakfaster ordered that, we went for our regular specials, while yet another got the latkes. I was glad for the diversity, as it all turned out excellent.

The Ukrainian brek consisted of yummy fried perogies (with chunklets of onions on top), toast and eggs poached in cream. Yep, right in thick cream. This is food to steel you up for working in the rough and tumble Winnipeg North End of today, or rural Manitoba circa 1853.

The special was shiny, but really tasty. There was dill and garlic in the potatoes which were cut into huge chunks mixed with little gribbly bits. The eggs were good, and the toast fine but the kolbassa (as they spell it) was the best we’ve had yet. It really put the other garlic sausage we’ve had into perspective. This wasn’t a unicolour plastic representation, it was actually kolbassa. I could see the differences in ground meat and sinew in it, which was surprisingly nice to see.

Alycia’s was not kitschy because it’s not ironic. It’s straight-up authentic and gaudy. Their recent renovation took out some of the carpet but replaced the wood paneling on the walls and left the rest looking as Christmassy as before (which I bet will not have changed come July).

The little touches were cute, like a bowl of ketchup packets and a plate of peanut butter and jam packets, but they sure weren’t classy. Neither was the horrendous exterior to the building with the fool’s door. The door on the corner looks like a cruddy door to a cruddy restaurant, but it’s sealed and you have to go up McGregor a bit to the real entrance.

Like most North End restaurants, you have to serve your own coffee and get to look at moulding photos of obscure celebrities on the walls. Alycia’s has not-so-obscure names like John Candy, Luba Goy, and Hank from Corner Gas (his name is actually Fred Ewanuick), but don’t fear, there were still plenty of obscure names to sift through. This includes the award on the wall from now-defunct Perimeter Magazine for 2000’s “Best Enduring Restaurant.”

Alycia’s was great. Tastefully greasy and not too expensive. Check them out for any meal, as long as you like garlic, you’ll be satisfied.

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