Yet another food blog

A few months ago a new Ukrainian restaurant has opened in the city center one block from Planty park.

Of course I couldn't help but visit it right away, and had visited it many times since then

The owners are the couple from (the russian-occupied) Crimea, who decided to open a restaurant after few years of working and living in Krakow.

The place is quite small, but cosy, and the owners are very nice and hospitable

Now to the food.

On the one hand, they are trying to use the original Ukrainian products where they can (especially those hard to find in Poland, such as unrefined sunflower oil, or salo), but on the other hand there are some questionable decisions they took in regard to their recipes.

For example, their borsch (12zl) was with chicken meat.

Not that it wasn't tasty, it really was (and pampushka with garlic was nice), but that is not what I would expect to have in my borsch

The next thing that basically shocked me - the cabbage in my "varenyky with cabbage filling" (14zl) was actually sauerkraut(!). In my opinion this is absolutely unacceptable for Ukrainian varenyky (it should be just stewed cabbage, not stewed sauerkraut), but the owner explained this is "for the Poles who are used to this kind of fillings in their pierogies". Omg!

Unfortunately this is a plague that taints and kills too many ethnic quisine restaurants in Krakow and Poland in general. The owners change their recipes in order to appeal to Poles, which makes it just another place to eat "Polish food named differently".

For example, out of the tens of "Chinese" restaurants in Krakow there is only one that offers the food resembling the actual Chinese. The rest are mainly "fried pieces of meat with potatoes and surowki named after a Chinese dish".

But now again, in Hutorok they also have varenyky with savory (not sweetened, but salted) cottage cheese (16zl), or with the sour cherries (18zl) - these are next to impossible to find in Poland, and this is why I had to reconcile with sauerkraut varenyky in the end.

Since a few weeks, when the weather became quite warm in Krakow, they also offer okroshka cold soup, which is rather soviet than Ukrainian, but it's tasty and resembles popular in Poland chlodnik, so no wonder it is there in the menu

And yes, this is another point dragging the place down my "charts" - it's soviet. Or rather post-soviet. Starting from the big part of the menu, and ending with the soviet movies playing on their wall-mounted TV.

Conclusion: I have really mixed feelings about this Ukrainian (or should I call it post-soviet?) restaurant, they have both strong and weak points, but overall I would recommend them and will certainly visit again (and again). One should just choose wisely what to order.

Recommended

Hutorok

Czapskich 1

12:00-21:00

 

Polskie Smaki is quite a cheap place serving the Polish food. Despite being bar mleczny-like, their food is great. It's also self-service, so no much to tell about it

I usually order zurek...

 

 

 ...and pierogi, which are their local speciality (14zl). There are usually at least 3 types of very tasty pierogi, mostly with meat filling.

They are also the winners of the annual Krakow pierogi festival

 

Central location, good food, higly recommended

Polskie Smaki

ul. Sw. Tomasza 5

 

Marchewka z Groszkiem, located in Mostowa street between plac Wolnica and Kładka Ojca Bernatka bridge, is known and very popular among the locals.

So I was going to eat something, and was just passing plac Wolnica when I remembered I've heard of this place and decided to drop by for a lunch.

It was crowded with locals - and you'd know exactly what to expect in this kind of an establishment - traditional Polish food.

And what can be more iconic for a Polish lunch than żurek and schabowy? That was obviously what I've ordered right away

The waitress was nice and my order was served quickly

Żurek with sausage (9.50zl) wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but okayish

Schabowy with mashed potatoes and stewed cabbage (19.50zl) - schabowy itself was good, but the mashed potatoes were just awful, more like a starch paste. meh

 

Considering the place popularity I would suggest that I've probably ordered "the wrong" things and I think will come again one day to try something else.

But at the moment I wouldn't really recommend Marchewka z Groszkiem

Marchewka z Groszkiem

ul. Mostowa 2

So there's a place in the underground pass between the train station and Planty called Kalejdoskop.

The owners are a family from Donetsk, and they serve Ukrainian home-made food.

The place itself is nothing fancy, a few tables and a bar

 

I've ordered soup with dumplings (sup z halushkamy) and dumplings with cabbage (varenyky z kapustoyu)

These things I miss sometimes in Poland, because the Polish pierogi are usually made with mashed potatoes+cottage cheese or sauerkraut+mushrooms, while Ukrainian varenyky are usually made with plain mashed potatoes or plain sauteed cabbage (fresh, not pickled).

The soup appeared to be not just with dumplings, but also with meatballs. It's been a long time since I've eaten something as good and tasty.

The "big portion" (12zl) is really big and is more than enough for a lunch actually.

But since I didn't know, after the "big portion" dumplings (15zl) I was fed up to the ears

 

I'll surely go for smaller portions next time (10zl/12zl correspondingly)

 

Central location, good Ukrainian food, recommended

Kalejdoskop

Westerplatte 1

FB

 

I am Ukrainian, and today is Independence Day of Ukraine.

So that, no doubt, I just had to visit a Ukrainian restaurant ;)

There are a few Ukrainian restaurants in Krakow, and a couple of days ago I've read about this one somewhere.

So why not Chicheri? Let's go

Located in the quiet Dajwor street in the old Kazimierz district, close to the Old Synagogue, the place is quite new - I think they opened some time last winter

It looks like your usual Krakowian cafe and (thank god) is missing the "popular" for Ukrainian restaurants pseudo-rural style

I was greeted by a waitress who spoke not-so-good Polish, so I switched to Ukrainian right away

Still, the first thing I heard when entering the place was some shitty russian cheap pop music (OMG!), which in a few minutes changed into the shitty Ukrainian cheap pop (/facepalm).

Ok, so maybe they have a good lunch? I've ordered one. And it appeared to be typically Ukrainian.

For 18zl I've had:

- Ukrainian borscht

- Varenyky with potato filling + cracklings + sour cream

- Kompot

 

Borsch was ok, I can do much better ;) but not bad

 

Varenyky could also be better (and bigger in size), a sour cream portion was too small and it ended half way through the dumplings.

Kompot was ok

So, in brief, it was okayish lunch with Ukrainian "flavor" for small money.

Overall, recommended.

Chicheri
Dajwor 2a

Hi everyone

So today I've tried the app which is aimed to make it easier to choose something to eat in your vicinity (and better priced hopefully). 

It's called "Mniam", and is available for both android and iphone. It's pretty much straightforward, cafes/restaurants around you have different kinds of offers for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and you can just choose what you like, reserve it for you, and visit the place then. (JFYI, a lot of these offers are not available for the "ordinary" visitors, so better "reserve" your meal in the app).

So it was Manzana, their offer looked interesting enough to me today.

It is a mexican restaurant, quite a good one (I've visited it before), located close to the center, but somewhat off the beaten path. This is Stare Podgorze district, right across the river from the overloaded with tourists Kazimierz. 

This is Stare Podgorze district, right across the river from the overloaded with tourists Kazimierz. On a contrary to its over-the-river neighbor it's very calm, but not a bit less beautiful.

Manzana is located in the small and tranquil inner yard of the block on Krakusa street, there is a free parking and nice places to sit outside.

 

The waitress was very nice and smiling, I've shown my order in the application - tortilla wrap with chicken and fries (17zl), and ordered additional glass of juice (6zl)

I wasn't actually expecting much from this kind of promotional lunch, and the size looked quite small. But it appeared to be really good and tasty. I left the place satisfied with both the service and the meal.

Conclusion: Recommended. Very nice place, tasty food, good service

 

Manzana

Krakusa 11

I don't have any good place to go out for lunch in the vicinity of where I work.
So that I started to go for the random places (by car)

This time I've decided to visit Miodowy piecyk, a new pizzeria located on Miodowa street in Kazimierz district.

Their main "feature" are Neapolitan pizzas, which they also serve for lunch.

For 19PLN I got:

• Chlodnik (Cold soup made of yogurt(?) with cucumbers and melon)
• Pizza with anchovies and capers
• Glass of lemonade

I love chlodniks in general, and this one was ok, albeit kinda "strange" due to a melon addition.

Neapolitan pizza is one of my favorite foods, so that I'm quite demanding to the quality of my pizza.
Well, this one, despite being on a cheap lunch menu, was quite good. Definitely not the best you can eat in Krakow, too much oil and tomatoes, bad presentation, but good overall.

Lemonade was ok.

Conclusion: Good place for lunch, would recommend. Great value for money.

Miodowy piecyk
Miodowa 51