Dinner at Cafe Polonez

One great thing about being in Canada during the summer is that the sun sets at 9:30 pm!  Not 7:30 or 8:30 but 9 effing 30! We loved the longer day time hours here, especiall TC. I remember when we went to Vancouver several years ago in the summer, we enjoyed the longer daylight hours as well. Vancouver was pre-bloggng days. So here we are in the Roncesvalles neighborhood, which is known for its strong Polish presence.

(map courtesy of wikipedia, "Roncesvalles, Toronto")

(info from wikipedia's entry on "Roncesvalles, Toronto")"

"Culturally, the area is known as the centre of the Polish community in Toronto, with prominent Polish institutions, businesses and St Casimir's Catholic Church located on Roncesvalles Avenue. The businesses along Roncesvalles have formed the Roncesvalles Village Business Improvement Area and hold an annual Polish Festival."

Here are some of the really nice houses we passed while looking for parking.

"There are a myriad of small businesses, most of which are independently owned and operated. These include specialty gift shops, pharmacies, grocers (including organic specialty), health food stores, clothing and shoe boutiques, cafes and restaurants, book and music stores, video stores, art shops, hardware stores and law offices..Roncesvalles is very well-known for the large number of small restaurants, cafés and specialty food shops of various cuisines. There are several bakeries and delicatessens found along the full length of Roncesvalles."

Here's an interesting factoid, which explains this statue (below):

(cont'd)

"Pope John Paul II visited the neighbourhood when he came to Toronto in 1984. He dined at the Sir Nicholas Tavern, which is now the site of the coffee shop Tinto. An enormous memorial was held on Roncesvalles Avenue when Pope John Paul II died, with standing room only on the street and sidewalks of Roncesvalles from Marion Avenue to Wright Avenue. The memorial was loosely centred around a statue of the Pope located at the St. Stanislaus-St. Casimir's Credit Union, a credit union for people of Polish descent. A tribute of candles and flowers around the statue continues today..."

Way to go Padre! Dude, they are Waaaay into Pope JP II here!

Since we can get Asian food any time in San Diego, we wanted to try Polish food, having liked it when we visited Chicago. Across the street, you can see Cafe Polonez, our dinner spot for tonight.

I checked on yelp and saw that this place came highly recommended and that is was family owned and run for about three generations.

I liked how the letters made shadows on the walls...

Their menu...

I wanted something different...

Bert suggested Cabbage Rolls...

I thought a Pork Schnitzel sandwich sounded pretty good...

The bread and butter was similar to the kind we had Country Style Hungarian...

Bert wanted a different Polish beer (he last had Okocim) so he asked the waitress for her recommendation and this is what she chose for Bert, the Zubr (rhymes with "goober", ha ha)...

Turns out the a "zubr" is a huge European bison. In this case, the Zubr is a Polish lager which contains 6.0% alcohol by volume and is brewed by Kompania Piwowarska SA in Białystok and Poznań.

We started off with the white Borscht (spelled barszcz in Polish):

The soup was nice and creamy (but not thick) with lots of dill floating around. According to the menu, the soup is a traditional Easter dish, known as "Barszcz biały or żur".

"White borsch is made from a base of fermented rye, usually added to a broth of boiled white fresh kiełbasa. It is served hot with cubed rye bread and diced hard-boiled eggs added to the broth, and horseradish is often added to taste." (wikipedia, "Barszcz")

In our case, there was no cubed rye bread nor was the hard boiled egg diced. In addition to the sliced hard boiled eggs, the soup also had a few slices of Polish kielbasa.

We also ordered the Placki kartoflane - which are potato pancakes usually served with sour cream. As you can see, these were quite large and were oh so good and melt in our mouth fantastic!

Here is the Pork Schnitzel sandwich that we all shared...I desperately wanted to eat something breaded and fried! I ended up deconstructing my portion of the sandwich and picked it apart like a rhesus monkey grooming it's offspring.

These were the Golabki, cabbage leaves stuffed with pork and rice served with sauerkraut and a variety of pickled vegetables (beets, carrots), mashed potatoes and sliced fresh vegetables (cucumber and tomato)...TC really liked the cabbage rolls. I, on the other hand, liked my soup with the potato cancakes more.

The service here was really good..efficient and friendly. The vibe was very chill too. Lots of couples and a few families were here that evening. We were near the kitchen so it smelled really good from where we were sitting.

After all this Polish comfort food that we had for dinner, it was time to have dessert! But no, we weren't going to have it at Cafe Polonez...Instead there was another small Polish place just a few doors down...