Kolorawa Restauracja - Zakopane, Poland

When we visited Zakopane we walked up Krupowki Street, one of the five most famous streets in Poland and the main tourist venue of Zakopane. We were looking for places to eat and our guide showed us Kolorawa Restauracja, Colorful Restaurant in English. He said it was relatively new and he hadn't been there before. The front had some wonderful looking stacks of sausages, other meats and vegetables that really looked good, so I was all for it. However, now that I'm looking at it on-line, it gets horrible reviews on Trip Advisor and I wouldn't say it was horrible, but it was not one I'd recommend. 

Judy got a potato pancake with mushroom goulash and cheese on top which she really liked. 

She also got fried cabbage and it came in a bowl and was more like soup, but she liked it. 

I got lamb chops. We'd just been trying out sheep cheese and I was seeing sheep everywhere and thought it should be a great place for lamb. They were just okay. 

I also got kind of a salad sampler that was mediocre. 

Zakopane itself was kind of fun. We took a tram up the hill on the other side of the valley, then walked along the ridge and took a ski lift back down, getting some great views of the beautiful mountains. 

Romantyczna Restauracja - Warsaw, Poland

Romantyczna Restauracja (Romantic Restaurant in English) was located just down the block from where we stayed in the Old Town Market Place (Rynek Starego Miasta) in Warsaw. Judy used Yelp to find it. I am seeing that it is currently rated no. 23 out of 2,975 restaurants in Warsaw, but Judy notes in her journal that it was rated no. 8 at the time. 

Old Town Market Place, Warsaw

Romantic Restaurant

Judy got a salad with goat cheese, beetroot, caramelized nuts and seasonal fruits 

as well as had pierogi (dumplings) with wild game (boar and deer meat) and I believe prune, smoked lard and plumb broth. She thought it was very good.  

I got roe deer carpaccio and thought it was ordinary. I rated it a 3 out of 5 at the time.  

I also got pork knuckle with fresh vegetables and gave it the same rating. 

Overall, the service was only okay and it was quite expensive. Neither of us was really impressed. 

Parmesan - Kaliningrad

In preparation for going to Kaliningrad I looked on Trip Advisor and selected the restaurant I wanted to go to while we were there. I chose Parmesan. The restaurant was nice, clean and beautiful inside, but unfortunately did not have any English speakers which made ordering difficult. I was a little irritated that our guide left us to stay in her car while we ate. I'd specifically asked if our guide could eat with us so that we would have the benefit of her English, such as it was. 

The item I really wanted was not available, which I don't remember now, but I was quite disappointed. I ordered a drink with raspberries in it, had some grilled vegetables which were good, but pretty spare, and baked Camembert cheese with cherries and blueberries. I enjoy Camembert but I like it better with savory than fruit. 

Judy got slivered salmon that is sliced kind of like cheese, something that is unique to the area. It is frozen and like eating salmon icicle. I believe it may be stroganina, cut long slices that form ribbon curls. To keep the slices frozen as long as possible, the stroganina is served immediately on non-metallic frozen plates or in ice-cold bowls. I was not particularly enamored with it. It was frozen and tasteless. I tried letting some thaw out to see if it improved and it didn't. We left much of it un-eaten. 

Judy also got some sort of pasta and a large bowl of ice cream. 

I think under different circumstances I would really like Parmesan. The setting is nice and I think we just did not make good menu choices. So unfortunately, it was just okay. But I would love to go back and give it another try. 

Papa Beppe's - Kaliningrad

When we flew into Kaliningrad from Warsaw we were picked up at the airport by our guide who took us to dinner at Papa Beppe's. It appears to be a chain with at least two restaurants.  

Because of our proximity to the ocean, I think both Judy and I were thinking seafood. Kaliningrad is a Russian oblast snuggled between Poland and Lithuania. It takes a Russian visa to visit and virtually everything is in Russian, very little in English. With the benefit of looking on-line now, I can see we would have been better off going for pizza. 

Judy got some black (squid ink?) pasta with shrimp and mussels. She said it was okay. 

I got a platter with fried squid rings, raw salmon, and seared tuna. It was quite mediocre. 

It was not what I had in mind when we arranged with the guide for a nice dinner on our arrival, but that is part of the give and take of travel. Our guide the first night spoke relatively good English. Our guide the next day really struggled with English, I think she substituted in for us when this English speaking guide had another commitment arise.  

Oscypek - Polish Smoked Sheep Cheese

While driving from Krakow, Poland south to Zakopane, near the border with Slovakia, we passed an area in the foothills of the mountains full of green pastures, sheep and little wood buildings. Our guide stopped at one and we walked into a tiny shop full of cheese that was multi-hued shades of yellow. There was a small taster's table lined with each color of cheese and bite-sized bits of each one to sample. 

It was very salty, mostly too salty for me, which is saying something because I like salt. Ironically, Judy who criticizes me for over-salting my food, liked it better than I did and insisted on buying some (I think we forgot it in one of our hotel rooms).  

The proprietor took us to a small wood shed near the tiny shop and opened the door. Strong smelling smoke wafted out and two layers of iron grates contained cheese being smoked. 

Oscypek is smoked cheese made from salted sheep milk in the Tatra Mountains (the mountains that form the border between Poland and Slovakia and part of the larger Carpathian Mountains). It is protected under EU law and can only be produced in a couple of counties in southern Poland. It must be made from at least 60% sheep milk and can only be produced between late April and early October when the sheep are feeding on fresh mountain grass. The sheep's milk is salted, then heated, then rennet is added and stirred until it gets lumpy, then repeatedly rinsed with boiling water and squeezed. It is then pressed into wooden decorative shapes (the wood is sycamore - the only wood that doesn't impact the taste of the cheese) and placed in a brine-filled barrel for one or two nights, then placed in a wooden hut, close to the roof, and cured in hot pine or spruce wood smoke for up to 14 days. 

BBC Travel, "Poland's surprisingly beautiful cheese" notes that it comes "in three sizes: small (which are oval), medium (shaped like a barrel), and big (shaped like a spindle, and the only size protected by the EU)." 

We saw and tasted the barrel shaped medium size outside of Zakopane. Later that day, when we got back to Krakow, we went to a small market in Old Town next to St. Mary's Church. We ordered two of the small oval sized cheeses that were being grilled. One was wrapped in bacon. I liked it much better warm, and of course, anything tastes better with bacon. 

Kuchnia U Doroty - Krakow, Poland

Kuchnia U Doroty, or Dorothy's Kitchen in English, is a wonderful Polish restaurant we discovered in Krakow, Poland. We ended up eating there three times! The first time was when we had just finished a tour of Auschwitz and the Salt Mines and asked the tour guide for a good place to eat pierogis. He dropped us off near his recommended restaurant and we found that it was closed. So Judy got on her iphone and found Kuchnia U Doroty, about a half mile walk away. It got 4.5 stars on Yelp and 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor and was rated the #87 restaurant out of 1,635 in Krakow. It was traditional Polish, the menu was extensive, the food was good and the price was reasonable. So we went back again for dinner the next night. On our last day we'd signed up for a food tour. The guide asked the group how many were familiar with Polish food. We raised our hands and told him we'd frequented a Polish restaurant in Los Angeles called Polka Polish which was run by a Polish couple and was quite authentic. He was skeptical and said we'd see. We had a number of stops and several times we were able to say we'd eaten a particular food. Finally, our guide said our final place was primarily visited by locals and it was just like home cooking. Of course, it turned out to be Kuchnia U Doroty. He was quite surprised to learn we'd already been there twice. He conceded that we probably did know a little bit about Polish food. 

Kuchnia U Doroty

Our first night we were seated in the basement. I got a pork chop with mushrooms and gravy which was very good (the Polish do wonderful mushrooms and gravy). 

We shared four mushroom and feta pierogi. They were good - boiled - but not as large or as good as the fried pierogi we had at Restauracja Zapiecek in Warsaw. 

Judy got a salad with greens, goat cheese, orange slices, beets and candied walnuts. 

She also got bigos, a mix of sauerkraut and meat. 

We shared a cheese cake with sour cherry sauce which was just okay. I like my cheese cake a little more moist and sweet. 

Our second night we continued our Polish eating adventure. I got a small Greek salad with feta, olives, tomato and cucumbers with an olive oil/lemon dressing. 

Judy got some tomato soup, which I have no photo of, and golabki, cabbage filled with meat and rice. 

I got a Polish sausage with onion, which was nice

and chicken livers with carrots which were not very good. They were way too over-cooked. 

Watrobka - chicken livers with pear and cherry liqueur.

On our visit with the food tour we got fruit compote, which I quite like.

Potato pancake.

A breaded chicken cutlet.

Bigos.

Burazki, or chopped pickled beets.

Golabki.

And rachucy, kind of like a scone, with sweet cream to put on it. 

If we'd stayed in Krakow longer, we'd probably have gone back and tried everything on the menu.