GLOBAL WARNING

Harold’s favourite barmaid at the Heineken pub on Puławska 111a (the one with the tattoo) has left, and he’s been looking downhearted ever since, his only opportunity to engage in some light-hearted banter with the opposite sex being his twice-nightly encounter with the ancient crone who sits knitting outside the loo. Imagine his delight, then, when a new barmaid appeared recently, one with a cleavage so vertiginous that it should only be approached with crampons on. Harold had a clear view down the piste, so to speak, from his place on the hatstand, and refused to move to the cosy corner table which had just become free, his gaze riveted to the bar and his mouth hanging open in a rictus grin. Unfortunately she did not come near the tables (or the hatstand) being purely for promotional purposes. Harold did not dare approach the bar, for fear of falling in, I presume.

We have recently had occasion to sample a few of the more with-it eating places in Warsaw, which we were surprised to find very busy both midweek and weekends. The Warsaw Tortilla Factory (Wilcza 46) on a Thursday night was absolutely heaving with “spotty yoof”, as Harold refers to the younger generation (the male element of course). The food was not quite to our high standards, consisting as it does of tasteless dry pancakes with a nondescript filling and chips, but we were invited by our young friend Scrumpy and his latest Polish girlfriend (of which there have been several since he arrived in Warsaw ten days ago). Scrumpy is over here on a work exchange – he has exchanged work for a life of leisure - and had had a good day banging on his bongos outside the metro at Centrum so offered to treat us to his idea of a slap up meal. One can’t expect young people to have a clue when it comes to food, raging hormones have far more sway than taste buds. Unfortunately, when it came to paying, the pocketful of change he dumped on the table was a mixture of Deutschmarks, French francs, Spanish pesetas, Italian lira, Dutch florins and a couple of tokens for the New York subway, so uncle Harold kindly stepped in with the plastic.

Our curiosity about the new fashion for “fusion” cooking led us to visit the ultra-trendy “Sense” at Nowy Swiat 19 (Tel: 826 6570) http://www.sensecafe.com/home.html. The tables are a little cramped but this obviously wasn’t going to deter the large crowd of Warsaw’s bright young things who packed the place out one Saturday night in early November. I must say these were the more stylish (i.e. rich) kind of youngsters – not a dreadlock in sight. The restaurant furniture is a strange combination of orange comfy chairs and carefully thought-out and expensively-made table-tops in zebra-striped wood veneer which managed to replicate Formica quite convincingly. The eating area sits in sharp contrast to the adjacent drinking area, where patrons sip their Red Bull at a futuristic comptoir of high-tech shattered glass under icy blue lighting. The music is a hypnotic blend of jazz and techno, and if you like it you can buy a CD at the reception area. I of course fitted in like a dream with all the supermodels in black polo necks, but Harold looked like a fish out of water until his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and he noticed the large number of young leggy blondes, whereupon he started to cheer up.

The waiter brought us the menu, which I nearly sent back, thinking he’d given us a brochure for a sex shop by mistake. The various categories were listed in English as “Foreplay” (starters), “Wet” (soup), “Wild” (salads), “Hot” (spicy), and “Hardcore” (main meat and fish dishes). I turned to the desserts, expecting “Orgasm”, or at the very least “Oops, honestly that’s never happened before”, but they were incongruously entitled “Happy Endings”. Something of an anticlimax. The food is modern-oriental, and served on square plates. Very River Café Cookbook. My starter was composed of crispy duck slices served with hoisin sauce, noodles and a salad of cucumber and spring onions – a variation on my favourite crispy duck pancakes. Harold was tempted by the wonton soup (that should have been “wanton soup” in keeping with the nudge-wink tone of the menu) but in the end couldn’t resist ordering the “Pillows of Joy”, delicious prawn, crab and pork dim sum (steamed dumplings to you) - I could tell he was still thinking of that barmaid’s cleavage. The food was delicious and the portions rather nouvelle, although the duck starter would have been better served warm than stone cold. For main course I ordered “Wok ‘n Roll noodles with stir fry chicken” and Harold went for Surf & Turf, which consisted of slices of lamb served with scallops and pak choi. My chicken noodles were slightly spicy and excellent, although simple and nothing more than a bowl of noodles; Harold enjoyed the scallops, although lamb was an odd choice of “turf”.

We had a bottle of Merlot at a most reasonable 59 zlotys to wash it down. The service was good, and the staff are well trained and all speak excellent English. The bar has a vast selection of vodkas which are kept in a chilled cabinet, and Harold couldn’t resist a couple of Chopins to round off his meal. A visit to the loos was rather disorienting – from the ice-blue lighting on the grey concrete stairs to the frosted glass doors, they’re not designed to keep you hanging about. Our feeling was that “Sense” is trying just a little too hard to be different and trendy, and would do well to use a bit more sense with its flavour combinations. One or two of the dishes on the menu defied the imagination – wild boar in red wine and chocolate sauce, indeed! Whatever next. The cuisine struck us as more Confusion than Fusion, but it certainly made a change from duck with apples. The bill was a most reasonable 235 zlotys, including two G & T’s, a bottle of wine and two snifters. But next time I’ll make sure Harold wears his Paul Smith.

To round off the evening we walked up to Plac Trzech Krzyży (it’s always a good test of how drunk you are to see whether you can still say that) and stood outside the trio of bars Szpilka, Szpulka and Szparka trying to decide which one to favour for a last snort. Through the plate-glass windows we observed the throng of beautiful peroxide-blonde solarium-tanned stick insects (and that was just the barmen). Our dilemma was resolved deftly by the Phil Mitchell lookalike doorman, who said “Isn’t it time you old dears went home to bed? It’s ten o’clock.” “Come along, Harold,” I said, steering him towards a taxi. Sometimes one should just give in gracefully.