Roy had an idea to visit a milk bar in Warsaw and I’m not sure that I was entirely thrilled and delighted about this. A Polish milk bar, or bar mleczny, is an inexpensive cafeteria serving traditional home-style dishes such as stews, soups and potato pancakes. They were commonplace during the communist years when they offered cheap food to workers.
I decided to go in first as I’m very brave and orders were taken at that little desk, with the food then collected from the counter to the left of this photo. I managed to order entirely in Polish and the cashier obviously was impressed at that as she just responded in English. Here’s Richard taking another selfie.
With my food and drink safely received, I could watch Richard still waiting to order while the cashier studiously looked the other way. Roy and Jen had already collected theirs, assisted by Jen’s excellent Polish. I was already pre-annoyed that I would probably not like the food and would have to go to KFC.
It was bloody delicious. I had ordered the bigos with potatoes and a drink of kompot, which is a traditional, non-alcoholic fruit drink made by simmering fresh fruit with water and a small amount of sugar or honey. The bigos was rich, flavourful and full of savoury depth, with tender cabbage and little pieces of unknown, but not fatty, meat that made my advance complaints seem rather poorly researched. The whole arrangement cost about £4, from memory, and was reassuringly hearty. Roy had made a good decision here.
Roy went for what looks like kotlet schabowy, a breaded pork cutlet, with boiled potatoes and mizeria, a cucumber and sour cream salad. A reassuringly substantial arrangement from the man responsible for bringing us here.
About ten minutes later, Richard arrived with his food which appeared to be some leek with cream served alongside a roll. I’m not entirely sure if this is a traditional Polish meal, but Richard maintained that he liked it.
Anyway, I was sold on this place, which felt authentic and was actually used by locals rather than just tourists. The service was friendly, the ordering process was easy, the venue was clean, the food was served quickly and it tasted delicious. All very lovely.