Pittsburgh has been without a Ukrainian restaurant for years. The legendary Shabaturas Restaurant on Grant Street closed in the 1950s, and the original Old Europe, which was Ukrainian, closed long before I moved here. (The name was bought by Nick Jordanoff, who moved it to a new location on East Carson Street, where he serves pan-Eastern European cuisine.) With a community of 35,000 Ukrainians in Western Pennsylvania, there is clearly a demand for Ukrainian food.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Irene Horajsky shows two specialties -- shashlyk, left, and Ukrainian fresh fruit chocolate torte -- on the menu at Roxolana's Garden on the North Side. Click photo for larger image. Roxolana's Garden 856 Western Ave. North Side 412-231-7696 www.roxolanas.com Hours: Breakfast, 7-11 a.m.; lunch, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, 5:30-9 p.m., Mondays-Fridays; brunch, 10 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. Sundays; closed Saturdays. Basics: A family-run restaurant serving Ukrainian specialties in addition to burgers and salads. The pleasant dining room has well-spaced tables that allow for comfortable conversation. Interior decoration features Ukrainian art and artifacts and a museum-quality collection of Ukrainian Easter eggs. Prices: Appetizers, $2.25-$7; entrees, $9-$19; desserts, $2.25-$2.75; BYOB, free corkage. Summary: No smoking, three steps into building, major credit cards accepted. Parking on street with meters before 6 p.m.

Filling the void is Roxolana's Garden, an addition to our local dining scene. Housed in a remodeled turn-of-the-century brick townhouse on Western Avenue, North Side, Roxolana's Garden is the creation of Irene Horajsky, a Ukrainian-American, born in Chicago's Ukrainian Village and steeped in Ukrainian culture. Before deciding to move her family to Pittsburgh and to open an ethnic restaurant, Horajsky studied for a doctorate in Ukrainian literature and later was a professional translator for the U.S. State Department.

The lunch and dinner menus are a combination of burgers, salads and entrees, with the prices and portions at lunch being less than at dinner. Since I was interested only in ethnic specialties, I cannot comment on the burgers and sandwiches. The earmarks of Ukrainian cuisine are beets, cabbage, potatoes, onions, garlic, sour cream and dill. Borscht ($2.25), a soup that is a staple in most East European diets, takes on a slightly different color in Horajsky's kitchen. Rather than beet red, the beefy broth is brown and the soup appears to contain more onions, cabbage and carrots than it does beets. Garnished with a dollop of sour cream and a liberal dusting of dried dill weed, it is a tasty soup that introduces the dominant flavors, which will follow in the salads and entrees.

Pyrizhky, a puff pastry filled with ground beef, is the traditional accompaniment for borscht and is available for $1.25 per piece. The tomato rice soup is a light broth with lots of onions, carrots, celery and rice with a chunk or two of fresh tomato. This, too, is sprinkled with dried dill. At dinner, there are several appetizers, which are not available at lunch. Mini Potato Pancakes with sour cream and caviar (and no, it is not beluga) are a nice way to begin the meal. Four silver-dollar size pancakes are topped with sour cream and a spoonful of salty caviar. The caviar, cream, potato and onion combination is delicious. Crab and Caviar on pumpernickel ($7) was disappointing. The fish spread tasted more like tuna than crab.

The salad list is long; however, only one is straight out of Kiev. Beet Salad ($9) at dinner is a large pasta bowl filled with butter lettuce and sliced pickled beets and garnished with rings of red onion, slices of Granny Smith apple and capers. The salad is dressed with cream horseradish sauce and more dill weed. Orange Walnut Salad ($10) begins with the same butter lettuce and is topped with orange sections, which are drizzled with cinnamon-spiked honey and garnished with sliced radishes and onions and topped with toasted walnuts. The most unusual salad combination is Black-eyed Pea and Pineapple ($10). In addition to the peas and pineapple, this dish contains roasted bell peppers, cilantro and jalapeno peppers. All salads are huge and can easily work as an entree for vegetarians or be shared by three or four persons if eaten in addition to an entree. They are served with excellent MediTerra or BreadWorks bread products.

For entrees, I concentrated on classic ethnic dishes. Holubtsi or stuffed cabbage ($9) is almost the national dish of Ukraine. With a filling of ground beef and rice and a topping of tomato or mushroom sauce, this simple and inexpensive main course can be found throughout the Balkans and former Russian states in slightly differing versions. Roxolana's version has a stuffing that is mostly rice. The serving is three fat rolls covered with creamy mushroom gravy. It comes with your choice of a side: either cole slaw, horseradish beets, cucumber and onion salad or French or sweet potato fries. I found the cucumber salad a perfect complement to the cabbage. The large bowl of paper-thin slices of onions and cucumbers is dressed with sour cream and dill. It would have been even better if the kitchen had used fresh dill. Potato Pancakes ($9), a regional favorite, are a perfect choice for vegetarians. Four plump pancakes are served with individual containers of sour cream and applesauce. Chicken Paprikasz ($12) is chicken breast pieces stewed in sweet red pepper sauce. It came with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables on the plate. The sauce was bland and there was less of it than I would have liked. Other entrees on the menu are less rooted in Ukrainian culinary traditions. There is Shashlyk ($18), which is grilled skewers of either veal or shrimp with tomatoes, bell peppers onions and mushrooms or Broiled Tilapia ($12).

Horajsky, who alone handles all the cooking, excels at making pyrohy (pierogi). You can eat them in the dining room ($7.50 per half dozen) or buy them frozen to serve at home ($8.95 per dozen). They are available with potato and onion stuffing or with sauerkraut and onions. These, too, make a perfect vegetarian meal. While potatoes and onions are the most common stuffing for pyrohy, Horajsky has added another stuffing -- one that is new to Pittsburgh -- fresh cherries or blueberries. Made during the summer, when the fresh fruits are available, and frozen, the fruit pyrohy are $9 per half dozen in the restaurant or $10.95 per dozen frozen for home consumption.

Desserts are made in the kitchen and include some tasty Ukrainian pastries. There is Apple Strudel or Cheesecake with candied fruit for $2.75. Apricot-filled wafers with raspberry sauce and cr?me anglaise are $2.25 and two puff pastries filled with poppy seed are $2. You can have an espresso coffee ($2.25) to complete the Old World experience. Mineral waters and bottled drinks are exceptionally reasonably priced. Soft drinks cost $1 with unlimited refills and a 16-ounce bottle of San Pellegrino is $2.15. The restaurant does not sell alcoholic beverages but is happy to open your bottles free of charge.

The dining room of this new restaurant is bright and pleasant. High ceilings are hung with handsome chandeliers and the sunny-colored walls display a collection of framed color photographs of some of Ukraine's architectural treasures. Don't miss a display case hung between the two windows that contains a fantastic collection of pysanky (Easter eggs). The elaborate hand-painted designs feature geometric motifs with some animal and plant elements. The eggs are decorated with the wax resist method using natural dyes made from plant roots, tree leaves or bark or flower petals. These eggs are one of the great folk arts of Eastern Europe. Horajsky has one of the better collections I have seen.

Don't miss this opportunity to taste home-cooked Ukrainian specialties in a lovely home setting. During warm-weather months, the restaurant will expand into an off-street garden.