Roxolana Restaurant & Wine Bar

Armed with a Groupon and our love perogies we headed to Roxolana Ukrainian restaurant in Old Town Pasadena. Vegetarian options were limited but we knew that going in having viewed the menu online but. We’ve eaten at great Ukrainian places like Veselka in New York City and we had high hopes that just such an establishment, offering Eastern European comfort food, to satisfy our Eastern European sensibilities had cropped up in our neck of the woods. The food and the service left us disappointed.
We ordered a number of different dishes all of which came out at the same time making our table hard to navigate and letting some food cold by the time we got to it.
We also, in an effort to find something our 3 year old was willing to eat ordered a side of white beans. (Our kid, as all 3 year olds are, is pretty finicky about what he’ll put in his mouth and a plain cooked bean of some kind is one of those items.) They delivered a plate of baked beans to the table. Baked beans, which is okay in our palette, but certainly not plain dish, and not particularly Ukrainian for that better, were not only not what we ordered, but not what we wanted either. After mentioning this to the waiter who thought he was doing as a favor, he responded with the unforgettable «Beans is beans.» I restrained myself from launching into a dissertation about the differences between black beans, pinto beans, kidney, beans and baked beans and just sent the dish back.
My wife and I started with the borscht. It was beautifully presented but bland. The only flavor it had came from the sour cream included in it. Hello Eastern Europe… we are in your restaurant… give us the best you have from your region’s signature dish… a bowl of red nothing just didn’t cut it.
We supplemented the soup with an order of Vierniki and potato pancakes. Vierniki were like boiled pierogies. They were okay… decent dough, but again a little bland. The potato pancakes were like then potato crepes… unique I suppose, but also bland and again needing the sour cream accompaniment to give it any flavor. Again with our Eastern European sensibility, any order of any kind of potato that had been fried would typically satisfy us which left us particularly disappointed at this poor excuse for latkes.
The waiter made us feel like he needed to prove he was ‘right’ with every interaction. It’s almost worth flying to New York City to eat at Veselka to redeem the entire culinary Ukrainian nation… We left hungry and disappointed in every possible way. We definitely will not return.
For more reviews from a vegetarian perspective, visit Rick and Addie’s veggie food blog:

The interior is beautiful, however, the food and the service is average.
I purchased the Unilocal deal and dined in with a friend. When I showed the voucher to the server, his attitude changed and told us that he might not honor it. What?
This was my first time trying the restaurant, and I don’t think I would come back.
It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t memorable either.

I came here with my boyfriend and a livingsocial deal. I was expecting crappy and super slow service because of some Unilocal reviews. but it was actually not bad at all! We were out after an hour. It smelled kinda funny when we came in.
There was only one server for about 5 tables. When we arrived he was busy all over the restaurant, but once he came to take our order, he was really nice and did not rush us to order and took time to explain the dishes (I told him we’d never tried Ukrainian food before and asked for recommendations).
He recommended the chicken kiev and a couple of others that I don’t remember. He asked my boyfriend what kind of meat he wanted to eat. he said beef. So the server recommended the French style steak.
From reading reviews and the menu, I already wanted to try the vareniki because it’s described as a truly Ukrainian dish!
The food arrived and I got my plate of dumplings. Some of them were filled with potato (like mashed potatoes) and some with ground meat. The skin of the dumplings is kind of thick so the texture was very chewy. I liked the flavor, but it eventually felt heavy and I got tired of the chewiness so I ate some of my boyfriend’s food.
The French style plate was huge. The steak is covered with some mayo and cheese, with mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. The mayo makes it a little bit too heavy. but the flavors are good. The mashed potatoes were buttery and the vegetables cooked just right.
I have no other restaurant to compare this to but I enjoyed my meal. I would go back to try other dishes! I want to try the chicken kiev. and the borscht soup! I saw they have red wine mousse for dessert: O

I had a Living Social voucher for this place, otherwise, I would never have thought of coming here. Although it is in Old Towne Pasadena, Roxolana is located in one of the side streets so does not attract much attention. I arrived at 8:00pm and the waiter told me they stop taking orders at 8:30pm because the close at 9:00pm. It closes so early! However, understandable since it isn’t in the main streets of Old Town.
The venue is small with only one waiter serving. He offered very nice service and was very friendly. I am not familiar at all with Ukrainian food and asked him to introduce a couple dishes. He was very patient and detailed in his food description.
When the food arrived, it was definitely very tasty! I’ve fallen in love with this place and would absolutely come again! Hopefully, if business improves, they can close later.

Usually I love it when a restaurant calls attention to all the little parts of the dining experience that I take for granted. Unfortunately, Roxolana did that by making me miss all of those things.
Look, the food is just okay — definitely not my thing — and that’s what reviews should mostly be about but I would be remiss not to mention service.
That took a turn for the worse the moment I mentioned my Unilocal deal. Tones became sharp and as someone else mentioned in their review, they have their own rules for the deal. I had come here after a long day on set and was too tired to argue, but the last thing you should be making customers feel is unwelcome.

Finally used my groupon Friday night… drove from Costa Mesa to Pasadena just to try this place out with my bf… and…eh…it was just okay.
First of all it was not very packed, actually quite a lot empty tables for a Friday night. So we got seated right away and after looking at the menu we decided on a Seafood Puff Pastry appetizer and my bf ordered the Kruchenyki — pork roulette stuffed with mushrooms, onions and egg. And I ordered the French Style Meat — beef and onions with cream reduction topped with a slice of provolone cheese. Since this is my first time having Ukrainian food, I’m not sure if it’s this place or just Ukrainian food in general but the flavor of the food was really really light.
The appetizer had a sauce but tasted and looked watery… the seafood looked like it was chopped up or they used like super baby seafood or something — didn’t look appetizing after taking off the puff pastry… wouldn’t recommend this appetizer.
The pork didn’t have a sauce but at least the seasoning on the breaded crust and the combination of the filling was good. The French style meat had a little more flavor due to the slice of provolone cheese. The veggie side dish was okay… and the Roxolana fried potato was really just fries.
The service was kind of slow too — I wasn’t super hungry but the food did seem to take a long time to come out and like I said they weren’t busy. The waiter came around once or twice but at the end when we wanted to pay, it took him a while to come over to give us the check and after that even longer to collect the check… he was busy talking with the manager I guess and busy talking to the other table of customer.
Overall, the meal was okay, the service was fair, it didn’t really wow me, and if wasn’t for the Groupon that I purchased I wouldn’t have gone to this place… well actually I take that back, I probably would have but I guess it was more worth it half off since the meal wasn’t that great and was kind of expensive if we were to pay in full.

I’ve passed by this place several times without ever knowing that it was there. My friend and I decided to give this place a try since I had a Unilocal deal.
There was NO ONE there when we went in. Only a couple seated inside and another outside and two ladies finishing their meal. The greeter barely greeted us and she just nodded at our table after walking us halfway there. Okay… awkward.
The waiter was nice and gave us recommendations. We shared the zrazy with meat, which was good, but my friend and I both agreed that it was like Japanese croquette. It’s terribly starchy and dry without the sauce, which we kept liberally pouring over our zrazy.
We had the vareniki (dumplings) with potato and mushroom upon the waiter’s recommendation. My friend and I were excited until we got it. This was our first time eating Ukranian food, so maybe we just aren’t used to it. I felt like a sauce would be nice with the dumplings because all we tasted was potato. My friend said that she saw the mushrooms in there, but couldn’t taste them at all because there were so few.
When we left, the awkward greeter just forced a smile after looking up from texting…
Food was alright. Dinner prices here are pretty steep, and I don’t see why anyone would come here without a coupon.

Heard of this place through Living Social. Came in Friday night for dinner with the deal. We were greeted and sat immediately after informing the host of our reservation. We ordered the Meat Pierogi’s to start. Much different from Poland’s. The Ukrainian version is more of a stuffed baked roll. The bread itself was soft with a light crust outside. Good way to start the meal. For our entrees we ordered the French Style Beef (W/​Roxolana Fried Potatoes and white beans with fried onions) and the Vareniki served with sour cream. I also had a Soviet Mule (Vodka, Ginger Ale, Lime Juice — 16oz. Glass $ 9) with my meal. That was a very good, refreshing drink for a hot day like today. My French Style Beef was cooked to medium as I requested and was just as good as it looked. The steak itself was topped with fried onions a cream sauce and provolone cheese. The beans were sweet and savory. They along with the Roxolana fried potatoes (crispy home fries) are mixed with a medley of onions, red and green peppers. The Vareniki reminded me of little Polish style pierogi’s. The dinner plate had about a dozen peppered with fried onions. I tried a couple, they were delicious. We finished our meals and were left happy and satisfied. Our waiter was very attentive and overall we had a very positive experience.
Note* Only one promotion per visit. Living Social or Unilocal check in offer. Metered street parking $ 1.25 an hour.

I was shocked to find out there was a Ukrainian restaurant in LA. I wish Texas had one!
I was skeptical of how the food would be here as I find my mom’s Ukrainian food to be the best (any Ukrainian will tell you their mom’s Uki food is the best). I had the borscht which was really great. I found it odd that beans were incorporated but different regions make it differently. It came in a cool heavy bowl with plenty of veggies. I also tried the potato varenyky which were small in size but great as well! I liked that they were not heavily packed down with butter and I was thankful it was real potato. I would recommend both these dishes.
I was told the beef stroganoff was not that great – spaghetti noodles were used rather than the traditional wavy egg noodle. Just a heads up.
If you want bread before your meal comes out, you will have to ask.
Try the Ukrainian beer Lvivske which traces its roots back from 1715. Really refreshing.
Service can be slow so don’t stop by if you are in a rush.

One star for the service (unpleasant):
The waiter first gave me a «lesson» at beginning about «what the Unilocal deal can NOT do in their place» and then another lesson at the end about «how to use Unilocal deal correctly in their place». Basically, they have their own rules particularly for Unilocal deal users (not sure about the rules for groupon users). I do not mind following the rules, however, the way he delivered the ideas is somehow funny and rude. So, especially for people who are about to buy the deal, think twice! For people who already bought it, you may like to call them in advance to make sure that you get the rules for dining in Roxolana Restaurant & Wine Bar.
Three stars for the food and drink (not impressive):
Beer selection (draft) is very limited. Cocktail (Moscow Mule) is great for summer afternoon. Cheese balloons are interesting and worth a try. The crêpe are OK, a little bit chewy and not as delicate as I was expecting.

Food was good
but i was rush to order then over charge for what I order.
Instead of it being just a milk shake and a meal
The server charge me for three item instead of two
Then when I got my debt card back he slam my debt card on the table and made it look really busy. Very bad manner.
To me I will make a report to groupon and I don’t think this business deserve my business
i believe i should have taken my business else where when you cheat a costumer
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
The owner Decided to CONTACT ME.
I’M REALLY BUSY OF A PERSON. BUT THANKS FOR HARRASING ME ON Unilocal AND MESSAGE ME.
I FIND IT VERY UNPLASEANT TO BE CONTACTED IN THE MANNER OF HOW YOU CONDUCT IT.
ALEX IF YOU WERE TO SHOWED THAT YOU WERE POLITE. THEN THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN OPPORTUNITTY FOR ME TO HOST A DINNER EVENT AND FILLED EVERY SINGLE TABLE OR TELL ALL MY FRIEND ABOUT how great THIS PLACE. AND NOT ONLY THAT BUT TELL MY OTHER FRIEND WHO HOST FOODIE EVENT.
NOT ONLY THAT I WOULD HAVE TOLD ALL MY INNER CIRCLE ABOUT This place.
so let me rewrite this.
I’m a very honest stright to the point person. I really Don’t have the time to due much things. i’m always contantly studying. and when i work i work 12 hour stright. but currently i’m alway at school.
When I get a chance to Try out a Restaurnt it was the Chance to try something New. I’ve never had russian /​ukraining food. in my life so this is the first restaurant I’ve ever Try and got real bad service.
How the heck can you called your own Customer a lair?
Do you ever realize that I and Other on Unilocal Pay For your Bill and put money and food in your Pocket? How Dare you do something like that? and called your self a business owner? You really don’t know your customer and you really don’t care about your customer.
To be Honest with you Alex people will tell their friend about you. and not only that they wouldn’t even recommend you. Look at your own rating it’s less then a 3 and that actual statistic on your own place.
Now here a Food for a thought. if your Place if really Busy and there tons of review that rave about your place. you wouldn’t have all kinds of deals going on. as a matter of fact there is one place that i frequent after getting a Groupon Deal and that place is amazing.
you wouldn’t have a family member or a friend write a good review just to cover up the bad one.
IF everyone on Unilocal wanted to know the message from the owner
here is the link
if your a man of your own word you would take my advice and fire your waiter and hire someone who isn’t going to treat your customer like crap and slam the Customer Debt or credit card, freak-​in play communist Russia game By Charging for three meal when that’s not what the person order.
I paid for my meal, made my complaint to groupon, now i’m called a lair? And Don’t ever Bother Contacting me Again. If i really wanted to Get a hold of you i would have done it myself when it’s on my time. never your Time Alex

My friend decided to plan a birthday dinner here for a party of on a Saturday night. I was looking forward to it because I’ve never had Ukranian food, but I left this restaurant with a not-​so-​great impression.
The service was terrible. We ended up staying at the restaurant for almost 3 hours because we waited for so long for every thing including water. We waited for them to take our orders, to bring out the appetizers, to refill the water, to bring out the main course, to bring the check. They even forgot one of our appetizers! Since my friend made a reservation, they should have been prepared, but instead, the waiters served the others even though they arrived later than we did. The waiters’ attitude towards our party was not exactly nice either.
On the other hand, the food wasn’t that bad. The Zrazy was delicious, especially the sauce! There was some sauce left over on the plate, and I just wanted to take it home with me. I ordered the Zharkoe Kiev, and it was basically a stew served in a tiny clay pot. It was good, but I wouldn’t pay $ 17.95 for it again. It just didn’t blow my taste buds away.
Although the food wasn’t bad, I would not consider coming back here because of the extremely poor service we received that night.

Eat here with the Unilocal coupon. this place was totally empty at noon in weekday. It has nice interior design, is not that big but it does serve alcohol. We order the chicken kies and beef kebab, the beef kebab doesn’t tasted that great, the sauce doesn’t match. overall pretty average i think.

More like 3.5 STARS.
This was my (our) first experience eating Ukranian food. We have nothing to compare to, so this review is based on flavor and taste.
Our party of six always likes to try new restaurants and different foods… so we ordered 3 appetizers and 7 main coarses. We rolled out of there 2 and a half hours later stuffed and quite satisfied. I went back a second time and tried some of the other dishes we didn’t get to during the first outing.
The Pierogi’s and seafood stuffed pastry shells are pretty good. The Pierogi was a tad on the bready side but the taste was good.
For the entrees I tried to sample as many as possible, Vareniki, Golubtsy, Chicken Kiev, Kruchenyki, Kotlet, Chicken Tabaka, French Style Meat, Beef Shaslik. My favorites were definitely the Chicken Kiev and the Golubtsy.
Desserts left a lot to be desired. It seemed like most of the desserts weren’t made in-​house, that was disappointing. However, the Red Wine Mousse was a nice finish, try it, you’ll be happy you did.

I went here on a busy Saturday night with friends and was happy of my first experience eating Ukrainian food. Service was great, but also very slow since there were only a couple of waiters and servers available that night.
When we came here for dinner, I was delighted to eat their interesting meals (some of which are accompanied with sour cream of all things). We ordered several dishes, but the ones I could remember are the chicken kiev and salo. I ordered the chicken kiev, which was very crispy on the outside yet moist and juicy on the inside. I would recommend this dish to anyone who loves chicken! For the appetizer, the salo was quite unique since it tasted very salty and I had to add a bunch of condiments such as garlic to complement the salo. I later found out that salo was actually cured pork fat and not salted, white cheese as I first thought.
Overall, Roxolana is a great Ukrainian restaurant to try for the adventurous and for those who want something new. I will surely return to try their other dishes.

I’ve never had Ukrainian food before so I decided to check this restaurant out thanks to
. The place looked modern and clean… good job designers!
They have 2 beers on tap, a Sierra Nevada and a Gordon Biersh Hef. At least the don’t serve Bud light on tap so that’s a plus !
For dinner, my gf and I chose two dishes: one kabob dish (beef/​lamb) and the Ukranian Bitok. Both were pretty tasty. The ukranian bitok was the standout dish. It had a «home-​cooked» feeling to it and was nice and hearty. The kabobs were decent, although I wish they had a different sauce than ketchup, unless that is how they rock it in the Ukraine?
This would be a 4 star restaurant if the prices weren’t so expensive for the night time. I don’t believe a couple of kabobs should cost $ 17. Also, the food took awhile for it to come out, about 40 minutes. The restaurant was quite empty as we came on a weeknight, I’d be kind of scared of the wait time if the restaurant was even half full of patrons.
Besides those minor gripes, the food was decent and the service was pretty good. Solid 3 stars.

I love old Pasadena. She is a charming, gracious lady whose residents strongly support and love her. She is a foodie paradise for her fascinatingly international selection of cuisines. While not exactly really close to where we live, we do pass through several times a year and take delight in finding new and unique businesses and food establishments. Roxolana is one of those finds.
First impressions were great. I would classify it as a nice date place. The dining area is clean and classy, tastefully decorated with dark reddish-​brown tones and gold accents. It has a small bar and the tables are not crunched together.
We were there after the lunch rush and pretty much had the place to ourselves and the waiter was quite attentive. We were treated very respectfully and timely. The menu was several pages in length, but the entrée section was limited but very interesting. Usually we each order a different entrée, but this time it didn’t happen. Mr. B said I copied him, but I ordered first… so there.
We started by sharing a bowl of their homemade Borsch. This turned out to be a lighter version than I have seen, more of a vegetable soup (with generous amounts of shredded cabbage and carrots) with a delicate pinkish vegetable broth that announced the beet element. The traditional sour cream was in a side bowl that you can stir in yourself. While I needed to add a touch more salt, I found the soup quite satisfying and would definitely get this again. Homemade yeast rolls, hot out of the oven, with butter and coarsely chopped garlic on top melted down the sides. This was served at the same time. No problem gobbling those suckers down easily.
We ordered the Pork Shashlik (lunch portion), a Ukrainian take on shish-​kabob (not too surprising if you look at how close in proximity they are to Middle Eastern influences). The dish is made with marinated pork tenderloin, 5 or 6 large chunks per skewer (one for lunch, two for dinner) interspersed with vegetables, then grilled to put a nice touch of caramelized burn on the veggies but still keep the meat moist and tender. Melt in your mouth wonderful. We each had a choice of one side (the dinner portion is for two sides) so we chose white beans with grilled onions and more grilled vegetables. Both were outstanding and generous portions. A beurre blanc (butter and wine) sauce was served on the side. We ate our fill and still ended up taking some of everything home, happily.
Final bill, I believe, was around $ 28. Quite reasonable. We look forward to coming back.

Definitely a very different change of pace.
It’s rare to find Ukranian food, even in major cities.
The items we had were:
Borsch With Pampushki. Tomato, beet, carrot, potato, served with sour cream. It was a simple, but delicious vegetable soup that set us up for a great start to the meal.
Golubtsy. Minced meat and rice, stewed in tomato sauce, stuffed in cabbage. A very familiar rice and meat leaf wrapped dish that you find in many different European cuisines that is so tasty and simple.
Zharkoe Kiev. Potato, pork, mushrooms, carrots, onions stewed in a mushroom stock. Served in a clay pot. Great soul warming stew that was so satisfying and down to earth.
The establishment was tastefully decorated and was very cozy.
Service by Francisco was solid, which capped off this great experience

Sorry to ruin your thunder Roxolana. I was quite disappointed with you guys for your mistake and did not bother to correct my order nor even admit to the mix up.
The problem was I ordered the Beef Sashlik dish which was a kabob dish that included one side order. My side order was grilled vegetables… which was absolutely fine. However, my «Beef» kabob was actually Lamb. I dislike eating lamb, and I believe we all (the others we ate with around the table) know the taste difference between lamb and beef. Everybody who tasted my meat agreed it was lamb. The waiter however, disagreed or I assumed pretended to go into the kitchen to ask. Both times he says it was beef. And the answer he gave me was… «the beef marinated or dipped in red wine sauce altered the taste.» This has got to be the funniest excuse I’ve ever heard. Believe me, if the dish was beef, and it tasted like lamb… you guys will be out of business!!!
Anyhow, the food took at least 30+ minutes to prepare. If I had a hour lunch break, I’ll be back to the office late! I don’t know how busy the restaurant gets, but it was not full during time we were there.
For the cost of the lunch… the proportions are hella small! I only had one Kabob on the stick with three small pieces of meat along with bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes filling the rest of the stick. And guess what my grilled veggies were? Yes! the same stuff.
I understand it’s a business, and it’s located in Old Town Pasadena. So the lease might be a bit higher. Therefore, I don’t mind paying a little more for my meal. But this place needs to improve. At least admit to me it was a mistake that my beef was lamb. And it would have been better if it was corrected.
I did liked the pierogi’s we ordered. It was meat stuffed in a breaded hand roll which was served as an appetizer. It reminds me of a char siu bao! :)
If I had my pick between this place and if there was a golden arches next door… I think you’ll know where I’m going next time.
Two stars for now, and I’m being nice since the waiter was courteous even though he forgot to refill my iced tea a couple times. The food was decent and the cleanliness was there. The Ukraine part was the only reason why i thought it’s unique.

My friends and I have tried the restaurant on five separate visits since it opened in March. We were impressed by the wide range of Ukrainian samplings at dinner and two times for lunch, one time for late night dessert. The owners Greg and Alex have done a great job in creating a superb tasting menu. The salmon is always a favorite dish but I liked the hand made stuffed cabbage rolls (Golubtsky) the best, followed by a mouth watering Chicken Kiev, and then their fresh fruit crêpe desserts.
Greg, a culinary school master and Igor from the Ukraine have teamed up and delivered flavorful, beautifully prepared dished with style. The Ukrainian menu is authentic and the staff is pleasant and helpful, even chatty sometimes. We liked the vibe of the restaurant, the amber lighting and wine bar with large HD TV above the wine bar. We are organizing a June party for 20 super club regulars and will be back again soon. The bold Red letters Roxolana are easy to recognize at 34 S. Raymond, one block south of Colorado Blvd. and the entrance on the East side is located across the street from a three story parking garage which is a huge plus in Old Pasadena.
If you have a chance to visit with Alex, Laisa, Igor and Greg, you will discover their passion for authentic food and have a genuinely good time.