With only a couple of days in Warsaw, there wasn't a ton of time to do extensive food exploration, but we did manage to get a reasonable sampling of Polish cuisine.
Upon Arrival, we were super tired. We didn't get into the apartment until afternoon and hadn't eaten since early morning on the plane. So we opted for 'close to us' and 'familiar'
It was really good pizza
But the following day, Wife said, (and I quote) "I want authentic Polish Cuisine. A bit of research on Google and TripAdvisor, account for the fact we are in a very 'touristy' part of town, and we selected our location.
The food was quite voluminous and heavy.
I wanted to try the herring as a Rotary member I know who is from Poland had mentioned it.
Herring itself was slightly pickled, it had pickled onions, crushed beetroot with horseradish, and some kind of sweet/sour pumpernickel bread crumb accompaniments.
The herring was fine but I found the accompaniments a bit weird.
Then the mains
Potato Pancake with Beef Goulash
The potato pancake itself was excellent, the best item of the meal. It was totally reminiscent of the potato pancakes I grew up with and make to this day. You will not the cream on top of the goulash. That is a very common from our limited observation.
I had Braised Pork Knuckle
Braised meat, particularly things like pork knuckle and lamb shanks are a favorite of mine so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the meat itself was rather bland, and once again, the condiment flavorings were just not to my liking. The horseradish was not particularly strong. The mustard was sweet. So the dish, over all left something to be desired. However, with a sample of just one, I would hate to make an overall judgment.
Street Food
On our second day, we definitely did not want to eat as much as we had the day before. Just as we were entering Praga Park we saw this kiosk. The three items on the sign are various types of fried pies very popular throughout Eastern Europe though of Caucasus Tartar and Georgian origin. Not knowing anything at the time we opted for two kinds of Bilaszy, meat and spinach.
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The flavor with both were excellent and they were a great value. I jokingly told Wife that I should write a review on Google for the place not thinking a kiosk would be listed. Wrong! The place has a 4.7 rating and thousands of reviews!
Then later, Wife really wanted to try some 'good' Pirogi. Again we lucked out with a place off the main tourist area. We tried both meat and cabbage and mushroom.
The dough was nice and thin. The meat filling was quite good. But the cabbage had an overpowering sweet/sour flavor that I did not enjoy.
Overall, I found the predominant flavor combinations not particularly to my taste. But, for any in the audience with more experience with Polish food, I would be open to further education.
Airport Food
A last eating experience was at the Warsaw airport before we left. We are used to airport food in the United States which is mostly pretty dreadful. We went to a sit down place and enjoyed scrambled eggs. Not a big deal? Well these were clearly fresh scrambled and cooked, with a very good quality roll for a fraction of the price you'd pay for any sit down restaurant in the U.S., let alone an airport.
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