Gdańsk In Your Pocket no.53 (+Sopot & Gdynia)

In Your Pocket Experiences – Pierogi Making

In Your Pocket has teamed up with POLANDbyLOCALS to offer a wide range of activities such as paintball in the shipyards, pierogi making, local beer tasting and bicycle tours to explore the surrounding forests.

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Some of the new reviews in this issue

Kotka Cafe @GDANSK  

A cafe for those who love cats (and one to avoid for those that do not). Aside from good coffee and very nice homemade cake what you get in abundance is interaction with cats and for some, including most children we know, this makes this cafe their favourite in the entire Tri-city.

Haos @GDYNIA 

A very popular restaurant with a very relaxed atmosphere serving up a selection of Asian dishes. The team in the open kitchen turn out some nicely presented dishes including spring rolls and Tom Yum soups to start and Pad Thai and Indian curry mains.

Pak Choi @SOPOT 

A really rather good Chinese in a tiny venue a minute’s walk from the square in Sopot. The décor is elegant but not stuffy and the limited number of tables and above average prices suggest they’re going for quality over quantity. If it’s Chinese you crave, this is the best option for Chinese food.

Taverna Zante @GDYNIA  

A very impressive looking and tasting range of Greek dishes with some good non-Greek options and a decent drinks menu featuring cocktails and Polish nalewki. The menu comes with a little sign denoting the chef’s recommendations, so we went for them and were not disappointed. We started off with the Mezedes, a board of delights which delivered feta, samosas, dips, roast beer and vegetables. The Kleftiko was a pot containing roast lamb, feta, potatoes and vegetables and was delicious while the not-recommended but nonetheless very tasty Souvlaki was excellent value. Gdynia has always been the one place in the Tri-city to go for Greek food and this is another reason to take a trip ‘up north’. One point to note. Addresses in Gdynia are notoriously hard to find, due in part to the lack of numbers on buildings and also to premises having addresses which don’t always reflect their exact location. This place is a case in point. Find it toward the Gdynia Maximilliana train station end of Wladyslawa IV street.

Bistro Jak się masz? @GDANSK-OLIWA 

A friendly little bistro opposite Oliwa Park which is perfect for a lunch break while visiting the nearby cathedral or zoo. The menu is a mix of breakfast (until 13:00) and a choice of light lunches, snacks and daily specials.

Browar PG4 @GDANSK

A mightily impressive building plays host to a two-floored, 300-seater, microbrewery and restaurant. There’s 4 homemade brews on offer including a Pils, a Witbier, a Stout and a seasonal beer which are all made on-site in one of the 8 huge vats. There is a very decent menu too including an excellent Golonka (pork knuckle).

Chleb i Wino@GDANSK 

We weren’t optimistic as we sat down here as the place was packed and the service was rushed off its feet. But credit where its due. Olek kept the show on the road and our order made it out of the kitchen in good shape and in reasonable time considering the crowds. Found on the newly pedestrianised Stagiewna street on the Granary Island, this place clearly has a very promising future. The central theme here, as can be deduced from the name, is bread and wine. The bread is made in-house, as is the pasta and the wall of wine beautifully presented inside the very attractive interior, is comprehensive in choice. The aforementioned pasta was good (we tried the Tagliolini with shrimps, chorizo sausage and tomatoes) but special mention is reserved for the duck. It was late on in the day, the crowd ensured that the kitchen must have been working at full-steam, yet although it arrived looking a bit rushed it was perfectly cooked and was very tasty. Catch them on a quieter evening than we did and we’re sure it will be a memorable experience.

Dancing Anchor @GDANSK 

A stylish restaurant found in the first building to have gone up on Granary Island which also houses the Puro Hotel. A glance at the streetside menu didn’t immediately fill us with excitement because while there were some very creative dishes there was a lot of mention of the type of foods our mothers used to make us eat – think cauliflower and sprouts. Also the prices, while by no means expensive, were higher than anything else on this newly pedestrianised street. Nonetheless we headed inside to be met with a very impressive space with a huge open kitchen at is heart and smart wait staff eager to make us comfortable. We settled on an Assiette of pork with mashed potato, black pudding, cauliflower (in two forms) and a vanilla sauce. We’ll be straight here – we’d never heard of an Assiette before and two mentions for cauliflower would normally be two too many. An unexpected starter of in-house baked bread and a liver and orange pate was a pleasant surprise but not as much as the main itself. We now know Assiette, literally meaning plate, is a culinary term for a mixed plate which allows a chef to demonstrate his talents with a particular type of food, typically desserts. In this case we were treated to a joint of roast pork with crackling, two breadcrumb covered rolls of sausage meat, pureed potatoes mixed with kasanka (black pudding), crunchy cauliflower and cauliflower served like pork crackling. The combination was delicious and the pork with its crunchy crackling took us back to childhood Sunday lunches – considering how popular pork is in Poland, it’s notable how rarely you come across crackling. The whole thing was delicious and so filling we resisted the temptation to finish off with a slice of dacquoise cake. Overall the whole experience was very enjoyable and extremely good value. One piece of advice. Take advantage after 5pm when you can precede or follow your meal with a drink in the rooftop bar.

Allora@GDANSK 

Italian-owned and run right down to the waitstaff, this is very good and best of all, it’s a 10-minute walk from the main street meaning you can relax in a bit of peace and quiet away from the crowds.

Mamma Mia@GDANSK 

Found inside the Number One hotel in the area of Granary Island on the southern end which is undergoing a rebirth at present, this is a very good Italian/international restaurant with a smart, stylish look and a large open kitchen from which spring a good selection of pizzas, pastas and soups but also some rather tasty and well-priced dishes like pork and braised beef broth, fish and chips and a choice of burgers.

Bar Mleczny Stągiewna @GDANSK 

Milk bars tend to be rather sterile looking places but this modern take on the concept is anything but. Keeping with the Bar Mleczny tradition of cheap prices and simple food, the friendly staff keeps the crowds happy with a great value for money menu. Keep an eye out for the jars of homemade produce to take away.

Espléndidos Tapas Cigar Lounge @GDYNIA-ORŁOWO  

A Spanish themed bar and restaurant set in one of the most unusual buildings in the Tri-city.  Shaped like a right-angled triangle lying on its side, the design peeks your interest enough to leave neighbouring Sopot or Gdynia centre to travel the 10 minutes it takes to get to the Gdynia district of Orłowo. The menu is unquestionably Spanish so we went for the Marmitako soup with tuna and peppers, a plate of breaded sprats and of course the seafood paella. Very good if, in the case of the paella, served way too hot to enjoy for a good 5 minutes. There’s more to this place than a Spanish menu though. An underground bar and stage turn this into a regular night time venue; there’s a comprehensive cocktail menu and most notably Cuban cigars are available which you can smoke in their cigar room. The place is located on the edge of a quite upmarket housing development and opposite a Lexus showroom, so the sense is that they are going for a regular, moneyed clientele. Check it out for yourself.

Ryż @GDANSK-OLIWA 

One word here – taste. There’s an abundance of it and while we weren’t as struck by the choice of décor and materials used as our partner was (she even commented that the waitstaff seemed to have been chosen for their looks), we were extremely struck by the taste of the food. This is not a quick snack Asian spot, but a place to come to relax and enjoy. The prices reflect that though we’re talking by Polish standards, where the quality to price ratio is very good in general and excellent here. The soups come in two sizes and while we were rather surprised to see 29zl for the larger portion of Tom Yum, the 500ml full of meat and vegetables could have been a meal in itself. The beef curry which followed is making us salivate now just writing about it with wonderfully tender beef and a great mix of spices. Even the APA we washed it down with seemed to have been chosen for that key word we began with – taste. Oliwa is not a place known for its foot traffic so we can only assume the people behind this are banking on word of mouth dragging people from each of the three cities to try it. We’ll definitely be going back.