Polish Food First

I don't know much about about Polish food, so when my Polish friend suggested popping into a nearby Polish restaurant for lunch, I readily agreed. I was forewarned that the Polish love their pork, so I wasn't surprised when I saw a menu making liberal use of the other white meat. There were four of us who showed up at Bar Polski in Holborn, and we ordered a bunch of things to share along with our mains.

We got an array of pierogis - cheese and potato, meat, or cabbage - with a selection of dips including sour cream, creamy garlic or mushroom. I couldn't tell which was which, so I ended up eating two of the cheese and potato and one of the meat. Apparently, regular pierogis are just boiled, but these were boiled and then deep-fried. And it's rare that anything deep-fried doesn't taste good, so I was a pretty happy camper.

We also got a basket of bread, and you're supposed to spread pork fat on top of the bread and sprinkle some salt on top of that. The bread wasn't exactly Polish style, since it wasn't as acidic as it's supposed to be, but I thought it was pretty tasty. And the gherkins that came with it were a nice accompaniment. I usually eat really healthy stuff like greek yogurt and edamame, and my friend followed my example a few times, and she was really excited at introducing me to her diet. "Look, TK is eating pork fat!" she exclaimed while laughing.

For my main, I ordered a kielbasa with grilled onions on top and a mustard dip, and it came with a salad, coleslaw and mashed potatoes. We all shared, so I also got to taste some stewed white beans with kielbasa, which was amazing. I was pretty sausaged out by the end of the meal, but everything was delicious. Who would've known I would like Polish food so much?

After we had sufficiently feasted on large amounts of pork, we decided that we should all get together and run the Bath half-marathon in the spring. I was drunk on lard when I agreed, so I hope they don't hold me to it. ;)

But speaking of drunk, the restaurant had an impressive selection of vodka - there were at least fifty different flavours of vodka at the bar! Did you know there's a caraway flavour vodka? Madness! But it'd be pretty tough to get drunk since a shot is only 25 ml, much to my American friend's chagrin. I don't drink, but this sounds intriguing!