Warsaw Restaurant Week!

You read that right: Warsaw has Restaurant Week. Two per year, in fact, and this past Saturday wrapped up the Winter round. If you know me well, you know that I REALLY like sampling a city's foodie spots. After all, if we are going to pay for a meal out it might as well be one of the best (or most interesting) ones. DC spoiled me in this regard, but as it turns out there is plenty for me to go off in our new city too. These restaurants are rarely obvious and sometimes buried on back streets that seem purely residential. But they're here, so I will find them!

We're early in our stay and I haven't gotten a full grasp of the Warsaw Foodie websites yet (argh Polish!), but we've been slowly making the rounds. Best in show pre-Restaurant Week: Kraken Rum Bar. No, we didn't get the photographs of normal humans with uninteresting tattoos on the wall. Yes, it was a little ridiculous to have the t-shirted chłopiec loudly translate everything on the chalkboard menu, skipping the words he didn't know in English. Yes, we almost missed it when he called our number ("eight!") because we were waiting for "osiem". But Bryan's fish curry was out of this world, and my shrimp sandwich with some heavy cilantro and pineapple slaw was downright tasty. Not to mention the whole spot was kind of like sitting in a redone garage with all your coolest friends. Facebook "like".

RESTAURANT WEEK 

3 courses for 39zł ($9.99)

Ready, set go!

LUNCH: MOMU Gastrobar

First, this place was decked out for Halloween in a place where Halloween is pretty fringe. Points. Second, it's a concept that we tend to like - global street food. Not terribly unique but they kept it interesting. Wedged in between our chicken satay and orange tapioca pudding was the Mo'Ramen Burger (photo). It's basically a cheeseburger with pan-friend ramen rounds for buns. It was pretty strange but we liked it well enough. More than beef ramen than ramen-bunned burger, but who's complaining.

Verdict? The Mo'Ramen Burger is exactly the sort of dish we'd expect to come out of Poland's NYC during Restaurant Week, and we were happy to see that fresh and new culture taking root here.

Mo'Ramen Burger

DINNER: Z57

We ended up here because the male wing of our dinner companions has a weird fetish about fruit touching his food and this menu passed the test. The restaurant is in up-and-coming (slooowly) district Sasha Kępa on the opposite side of the city from our home in Ochota, so we got on the yellow 9 tram and sliced through the city, over the river, and past the holographic Stadion Narodowy (National Stadium). This was my first time crossing the Visła!

Verdict? Nice dinner! We enjoyed the company (a fellow Fulbright researcher and his fiance) and the wine; I got my pumpkin fix (soup: krem z dyni); we all enjoyed the rib roast beef; and our friend got to eat around the fruit syrups on his Pawlowa dessert plate (photo).

Pawlowa (Meringue)

Needless to say the food scene in Warsaw goes way beyond your standard polskie pierogi, and we're loving all of it.

More on this soon!