Nothing is ever the same second time around, is it? After our triumphant visit to Krakow at the beginning of the year, we took our visitors with us this time - Sid Grimthorpe, Harold’s former NCO from somewhere north of Scarborough, and his wife Ivy. Lovely people, salt of the earth and all that, but I had great trouble deciphering a word they uttered. They spoke a guttural dialect vaguely resembling working-class Icelandic - it made Polish sound quite mellifluous by comparison.
We took them to the Kawiarnia Ratuszowa under the Rynek on the first evening, which was a good choice. It’s essentially a steak-and-chips place, but the food is always copious and good value for money, which is important where Sid and Ivy come from, and fresh, which is important to us. I think we all had steak, salad and chips in some form or other, and the bill was about 150 zlotys for four of us. Sid made approving noises in his native tongue, something along the lines of “Eee, arby reet hawa yer ganny son” (I’m sure all those from north of Watford will know what he meant!).
After dinner, Harold of course wanted to have a snifter at Panaceum and look up his old girlfriend Blondie, she of the long blonde tresses and quivering thighs. Indeed she was still there, but not as Harold remembered her. Gone was the shimmering mane of gold and the split to infinity skirt - she now sported a skinhead crop, nose ring, tattoo and Doc Marten boots. Harold smiled ingratiatingly in hopes that she would remember him and tell him her twin sister was in the back slicing lemons, but if she did remember him she certainly didn’t let on, and stomped sulkily back to the bar after slamming down our drinks. Harold was quite mortified, and convinced himself he must have inadvertantly jilted her last time, hence the embittered transformation. I made sympathetic noises, but had already spotted the sullen spiky-haired gel in a leather jacket and combat pants hanging around near the door. I hadn’t got the heart to tell Harold the truth, at his time of life it might have killed him.
The next evening, after a day tramping through the salt mines, we returned to the Elefant Pub which had so impressed Harold on our last visit - only to find it wasn’t called the Elefant Pub at all! It was in fact called simply Pub C.K. Browar, but the PUB sign over the door is adjacent to the sign over a department store called … Elefant. Oh well, it will always be the Elefant Pub to me. Sid, being a northern man, immediately took a shine to this very male drinking establishment and he and Harold had fun working their way through the Polish equivalent of a yard of ale - a 3-litre glass pipe with a tap at the bottom, full of cloudy beer (made on the premises - the pub is also a micro-brewery). Ivy and I had to almost drag them out bodily before they started on a second, as we’d reserved a table at Pod Aniolami, which we had so much enjoyed on our previous visit. Alas, we were faintly disappointed this time. Our first two choices of wine were not available, neither was the lamb main course. This is frankly inexcusable at the height of the tourist season. Harold ordered smalec to show Sid and Ivy some typical Polish cooking. Their reaction was not really enthusiastic, and the Polish speciality came off badly when compared with the scrapings off Ivy’s mother’s chip pan. Sid liked the red barszcz, but Ivy claimed the duck was tough (although Harold’s was delicious). My bigos was all right, but no more. Frankly, how exciting can bigos get? Having visitors from England, particularly ones as outspoken as the Grimthorpes, sometimes opens one’s eyes to faults one has a tendency to overlook as a resident in Poland. Such as the food. And the number of restaurants and cafes which charge you to use the loo, even when you’re a customer. Or the fact that shopkeepers NEVER have any change. We saw one girl open an empty till at the start of business one morning. For goodness sake, don’t they have banks here? It makes it very difficult trying to impress people, I do wish the locals would make more of an effort sometimes.
The next day we did our Jewish thing, and packed the Grimthorpes off to Auschwitz while we tramped around Podgórze for hours looking for the Emalia factory. When we eventually found it, of course it was nothing like it was in the film, and there was not even a plaque to commemorate Oskar Schindler. It was just an ordinary factory producing something or other. We dined in Kazimierz again, this time at the Klezmer Hois, which has a bigger dining room than Ariel, though still resembling your Aunt Myriam’s sitting room in Golder’s Green. The food was better than at Ariel, I thought - I tried chicken knedlach, or dumplings, which were delicious, and Harold’s trout was excellent. Sid had a huge vegetable omelette, and Ivy had chicken schnitzel , which she said was dry. I started to get the impression Ivy wasn’t over-keen on Abroad. There were two klezmer bands, the first young and rather soulful, the second older and more traditional Jewish wedding music. A large group of American ladies sitting behind us shouted at each other constantly throughout both performances, while we and the rest of the diners were trying to listen to the music. Harold finally thought up the most anti-American gesture he could make without mentioning the war, and lit a large cigar, blowing the smoke quite deliberately at the chattering matrons. Sadly even this did not shut them up.
Ivy wanted to spend the whole of the last day shopping in the Sukiennice, so we set up base camp at a terrace café on the square and occasionally relieved her of bags full of wooden carvings, Polish dolls, amber jewellery and embroidered tablecloths, freeing her arms up for more purchases. Sid sat nursing a Zywiec and muttering in his own language, something about “divvy gan yam weeya” which I think was a mild indication of concern about space in the suitcase.
On our last evening we tried a new place – U Szkota – a cellar restaurant and bar a shade upmarket after some of Krakow’s seedier student bars. The décor is olde-worlde and the Scottish theme extends to waiters in kilts and haggis on the menu – although we refrained from pointing out that the hunting scenes on the walls were most un-Scottish. Ivy and Sid, cautious after the exoticism of the Jewish restaurant, played it safe with sirloin steaks in various incarnations, but thankfully this time Ivy declared hers delicious. Harold went for roe deer (or “Bambi”, as he insensitively calls it) which was very good. I, unwisely (not like me at all) chose goose. I realized later, as I was sawing through the leather-like pieces of meat, that goose can never be fresh in a restaurant due to its size, and had obviously been cooked earlier, sliced and frozen. Let that be a lesson to me.
On our return to Warsaw, we took Sid and Ivy to Champions Bar at the Marriott for their farewell dinner in Poland, where we had burgers and pizza with chips. They thought it was reet smashing, like.
N.B. If you wish to try some of these restaurants yourself, the addresses can be found in “Krakow in your pocket”, a handy little guide available for 6 zl from any Krakow bookseller or tourist office.
Saturday, June 10, 2000
Sunday, March 19, 2000
CRACKING KRAKOW
Harold and I recently made another visit to our (so far) favourite Polish city, Krakow. We arrived hot-foot, in a manner of speaking, from the snows of Zakopane, Harold still sporting his reflective goggles, thermo-nuclear ski jacket and bobble hat and insisting on being called “Sven”. He might even learn to ski next winter. Although a super place for a short winter break, Zakopane is not exactly the culinary capital of Poland. After three days of grilling our own kielbasy to the haunting wails of piped Górale music, we were ready for something a tad more sophisticated.
A nice hot chocolate was just the thing to keep out the cold until aperitif time. Kawiarnia Jama Michalika (ul. Florianska 13) is the height of sophistication, an instant antidote to the hillbilly atmosphere of Zakopane. Do give the cloakroom attendant your Puffa jacket, otherwise you’ll feel rather out of place. The interior is dark - “Sven” even had to take off his ski goggles - but once your eyes adjust, it’s breathtaking. Totally art deco, as one would expect of the birthplace of the Mloda Polska movement - who were actually still hanging around, if the rather noisy OAP’s tea party was anything to go by. There are four rooms which get darker and more atmospheric as you go further back. The last room looks like an opium den. We sat under the beautiful stained glass dome, in giant chairs straight out of Alice in Wonderland, and listened to Chopin’s Polonaise, expecting Oscar Wilde or Diaghilev to sweep in at any moment. The waitress wasn’t quite Nijinsky - we waited an eternity for the menu - and the view of the Coke machine through the kitchen door took something of the atmosphere away, but the hot chocolate when it did arrive was thick and creamy, although sadly not served in a giant cup. Make sure you get a table with a lamp, Harold couldn’t even see the black-on-green menu with his specs on. Prices are reasonable, and it would be a nice place for an early-evening snifter for non-smoking Aubrey Beardsley fans.
Saturday lunchtime we fancied a change from Polish, without going completely off the map, so decided to eat in a small Hungarian restaurant called Balaton (Ul. Grodzka 37). We ordered potato pancakes Hungarian style - more by luck than by judgement, as the menu was in only Hungarian and Polish. The service was brisk and efficient, and the place filled up quickly, so it’s obviously a popular weekend lunch spot. The pancakes are the size of omelettes, and are groaning with goulash filling, served with a generous side portion of raw veg salad. With a pint and a Coke it set us back a colossal 66 zlotys.
A nice hot chocolate was just the thing to keep out the cold until aperitif time. Kawiarnia Jama Michalika (ul. Florianska 13) is the height of sophistication, an instant antidote to the hillbilly atmosphere of Zakopane. Do give the cloakroom attendant your Puffa jacket, otherwise you’ll feel rather out of place. The interior is dark - “Sven” even had to take off his ski goggles - but once your eyes adjust, it’s breathtaking. Totally art deco, as one would expect of the birthplace of the Mloda Polska movement - who were actually still hanging around, if the rather noisy OAP’s tea party was anything to go by. There are four rooms which get darker and more atmospheric as you go further back. The last room looks like an opium den. We sat under the beautiful stained glass dome, in giant chairs straight out of Alice in Wonderland, and listened to Chopin’s Polonaise, expecting Oscar Wilde or Diaghilev to sweep in at any moment. The waitress wasn’t quite Nijinsky - we waited an eternity for the menu - and the view of the Coke machine through the kitchen door took something of the atmosphere away, but the hot chocolate when it did arrive was thick and creamy, although sadly not served in a giant cup. Make sure you get a table with a lamp, Harold couldn’t even see the black-on-green menu with his specs on. Prices are reasonable, and it would be a nice place for an early-evening snifter for non-smoking Aubrey Beardsley fans.
Saturday lunchtime we fancied a change from Polish, without going completely off the map, so decided to eat in a small Hungarian restaurant called Balaton (Ul. Grodzka 37). We ordered potato pancakes Hungarian style - more by luck than by judgement, as the menu was in only Hungarian and Polish. The service was brisk and efficient, and the place filled up quickly, so it’s obviously a popular weekend lunch spot. The pancakes are the size of omelettes, and are groaning with goulash filling, served with a generous side portion of raw veg salad. With a pint and a Coke it set us back a colossal 66 zlotys.
Harold refused to go into Jama Michalika again without a torch, so I dragged him to the Czartoryski museum to look at the shotguns. I did make a point of sitting him down in front of Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine, and was surprised at how long he stayed there gazing in deep contemplation. Afterwards he said he didn’t think much of the painting at all, that chap who was in Titanic was a waste of space all round, but he was very impressed, however, with the alarm system.
On Saturday evening Bambus was pulsating with loud music and raging hormones, so I took Harold away before his old trouble started playing up, and parked him in the testosterone-filled Elefant Pub, a cavernous beer keller away from the Rynek, on the corner of ul. Karmelicka. The house draught lager and a darker version, brewed by C.K. Browar, was real-alish - slightly cloudy and not very gassy, with a faintly bitter aftertaste. Harold sampled quite a lot of it, and pronounced it to his liking . Even better, it costs less than 5 zlotys a pint.
We then headed off by taxi to Ariel, the famed Jewish restaurant in Kazimierz (ul. Szeroka 18). A word of advice on this one - book well in advance. The restaurant only seats about 26, and as we’d only reserved that same evening, we found ourselves seated in the souvenir shop almost on the pavement. Fortunately, due to a cancellation we got re-seated in the main restaurant. Although the food at Ariel is fine - and cheap - you don’t go for the food. You go for the music. There are two regular Klezmer bands who take it in turns to squeeze themselves into a tiny space between the bar and the diners and perform the most fabulous music. It’s more Schindler’s List than Fiddler on the Roof, so don’t expect to come out singing “If I were a rich man, biddy-buddy-boom”. Expect to be amazed. The concert costs 18 zlotys per head on top of the meal. For the record, Harold had goose leg served with croquette potatoes, I had chicken cutlet Jewish style served with salad vegetables, and we got so carried away on the music we had two bottles of very palatable Hungarian Egri red, at … 37.50 zlotys a bottle. Yes, that’s right. 37.50 a bottle. Total damage 150 zlotys, music included. Oy veh.
Harold fancied a quick one after dinner (I thought he meant a brandy) so we returned to Panaceum where Blondie positively quivered with excitement. She shimmied up in a split skirt that hardly covered her modesty, and was all over Harold like a dose of shingles. I almost expected her to launch into a rendition of “Hey Big Spender”. Still, she was a nice young gel and made an old man very happy. She was still waving happily through the glass door as we headed off to the Harris Piano Jazz Bar across the square. Not a terribly late-night place, as the excellent Polish jazz group were just finishing their last number as we arrived about 11.30 p.m., but quite late enough for a couple of old fogeys like us.
On Sunday, after marching Harold round the Wawel Royal Apartments where I giggled at the rude Hieronymous Bosch and Harold inspected the wiring, we returned to the Rynek. In the Town Hall Tower is a door leading to an underground theatre and a restaurant, the Kawiarnia Ratuszowa. The totally Gothic bar with a pair of life-size medieval types sitting on the counter looking like they’ve had a few too many vodkas was featured on one of the BBC’s travel programmes recently. The background music however (at least on a Sunday lunchtime) is mellow and jazzy, and the food is good and served in massive portions. Harold’s sirloin steak was pink and perfect this time, served on a wooden platter with chips and salad. My onion soup was tasty and the bacon salad was gargantuan. With 2 beers and 2 cokes, 72 zlotys.
Krakow is excellent value for money, although charges for little extras such as cloakrooms and toilets is annoying, and watch the taxi meters like a hawk - the name “Ariel” seems to add zeroes automatically. Otherwise, it’s a case of he who is tired of Krakow is either tired of life or seriously in need of a large box of Rennies.
On Saturday evening Bambus was pulsating with loud music and raging hormones, so I took Harold away before his old trouble started playing up, and parked him in the testosterone-filled Elefant Pub, a cavernous beer keller away from the Rynek, on the corner of ul. Karmelicka. The house draught lager and a darker version, brewed by C.K. Browar, was real-alish - slightly cloudy and not very gassy, with a faintly bitter aftertaste. Harold sampled quite a lot of it, and pronounced it to his liking . Even better, it costs less than 5 zlotys a pint.
We then headed off by taxi to Ariel, the famed Jewish restaurant in Kazimierz (ul. Szeroka 18). A word of advice on this one - book well in advance. The restaurant only seats about 26, and as we’d only reserved that same evening, we found ourselves seated in the souvenir shop almost on the pavement. Fortunately, due to a cancellation we got re-seated in the main restaurant. Although the food at Ariel is fine - and cheap - you don’t go for the food. You go for the music. There are two regular Klezmer bands who take it in turns to squeeze themselves into a tiny space between the bar and the diners and perform the most fabulous music. It’s more Schindler’s List than Fiddler on the Roof, so don’t expect to come out singing “If I were a rich man, biddy-buddy-boom”. Expect to be amazed. The concert costs 18 zlotys per head on top of the meal. For the record, Harold had goose leg served with croquette potatoes, I had chicken cutlet Jewish style served with salad vegetables, and we got so carried away on the music we had two bottles of very palatable Hungarian Egri red, at … 37.50 zlotys a bottle. Yes, that’s right. 37.50 a bottle. Total damage 150 zlotys, music included. Oy veh.
Harold fancied a quick one after dinner (I thought he meant a brandy) so we returned to Panaceum where Blondie positively quivered with excitement. She shimmied up in a split skirt that hardly covered her modesty, and was all over Harold like a dose of shingles. I almost expected her to launch into a rendition of “Hey Big Spender”. Still, she was a nice young gel and made an old man very happy. She was still waving happily through the glass door as we headed off to the Harris Piano Jazz Bar across the square. Not a terribly late-night place, as the excellent Polish jazz group were just finishing their last number as we arrived about 11.30 p.m., but quite late enough for a couple of old fogeys like us.
On Sunday, after marching Harold round the Wawel Royal Apartments where I giggled at the rude Hieronymous Bosch and Harold inspected the wiring, we returned to the Rynek. In the Town Hall Tower is a door leading to an underground theatre and a restaurant, the Kawiarnia Ratuszowa. The totally Gothic bar with a pair of life-size medieval types sitting on the counter looking like they’ve had a few too many vodkas was featured on one of the BBC’s travel programmes recently. The background music however (at least on a Sunday lunchtime) is mellow and jazzy, and the food is good and served in massive portions. Harold’s sirloin steak was pink and perfect this time, served on a wooden platter with chips and salad. My onion soup was tasty and the bacon salad was gargantuan. With 2 beers and 2 cokes, 72 zlotys.
Krakow is excellent value for money, although charges for little extras such as cloakrooms and toilets is annoying, and watch the taxi meters like a hawk - the name “Ariel” seems to add zeroes automatically. Otherwise, it’s a case of he who is tired of Krakow is either tired of life or seriously in need of a large box of Rennies.
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