Chlopskie Jadlo (apparently) means 'countryside cuisine'. This is a chain (well turned into a chain due to its popularity). There are approximately 6 restaurants within Krakow. This restaurant serves traditional polish cuisine. This restaurant isn't that cheap (according to Polish standards) but is reasonably priced (compared to London!) and cost ~ 50 PLN (£11) for a two course meal.
When you first enter the restaurant, what stuns you is the wonderful wooden decor. Some chairs/tables (or sledges!) have layers of sheepskin, and the restaurant overall presents with a very rustic feel. The waitress was very nice, although not very informative (possibly her English was not great). There was a lot of choice to choose from on the menu - which is exciting - except we ended up ordering too much, but we took a doggy bag and had it for lunch the next day :) so no complaints.
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| Cosy |
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| Buffet salad |
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| Condiments |
To drink, I decided to be slightly adventurous and order water with homemade jam - which turned out to be cherry jam topped with mineral water. It taste a bit like diluted squash - with minimal taste. But when you eat/slurp the actual cherries with the water (using the spoon provided) it actually taste quite good - slightly sweet - but not overly. Other interesting drinks on the menu included a bread drink or a sour milk with sprin onion drink - although I wasn't adventurous enough to pick those (anyone who is, please let me know how it taste!).
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| Water with homemade jam |
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| Water with jam (mixed) |
Complimentary bread is served if a main is ordered. The bread came with two spreads: cottage cheese with chives or ..lard with onions. The lard was actually quite nice - so worth a try.
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| Bread: with lard & onions or cottage cheese & chives |
For starter I ordered a soup taster - which consisted of 4 x 100 ml soups: rye flour, mushroom, tomato & noodle, and red beetroot soup. The rye flour soup and mushroom soup were delicious. The rye flour soup had a sausage taste to it - very yummy!! The mushroom soup - was similar to the the rye flour soup, but instead of the sausage meat taste, mushroom was the predominat flavour. The beetroot soup was slightly sweet - it didn't taste bad, although I don't think I can drink more than 100 ml. My friend also ordered a red beetroot soup, but with cream and poatoes - the bowl was huge*, too much in fact. The tomato noodle soup was dissappointing - tasted just like Heinz spaghetti letters - slightly thick with a tomato tang - not good.
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| 4 soups: (from the left clockwise) rye flour soup, mushroom soup, beetroot soup and tomato soup with noodles |
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| Beetroot soup with cream and potatoes |
A lot of Polish food is based on pork - so not ideal if you can't eat this meat. Now onto the mains...
We ordered the stuffed cabbage leaves. This was OK, but I probably won't order this again if I had the choice, the pork inside the wrap was a bit too porky or 'piggy' and the tomato sauce was just too tangy (maybe the mushroom sauce would have been better..).
We ordered the stuffed cabbage leaves. This was OK, but I probably won't order this again if I had the choice, the pork inside the wrap was a bit too porky or 'piggy' and the tomato sauce was just too tangy (maybe the mushroom sauce would have been better..).
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| Cabbage leaves stuffed with rice/meat, in a tomato sauce |
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| Stuffed cabbage leaves (opened) |
Next was the potato pancakes in a 'spicey' sauce. The sauce for one thing is not spicey. I envisiged something quite hot somehow. To me paparika is not hot. This dish was in essence, a hash brown topped with a goulash sauce. This dish was hugeeee and would be enough for two people to share or for someone with a big appetite. It was very yummy. The gerkins complimented the dish very well.
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| Potato pancakes with a spicey stew: with pork, gerkins, carrots and cream cheese |
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| Potato pancakes with a spicey stew |
A friend of mine ordered the pork casserole. She described it as 'bacon fried with potato'.
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| Pork casserole |
Pierogi topped with onions. I didn't try this as I had one too many dumplings during my trip in Krakow, but my friend said it was yummy.
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| Perogi topped with pork fat fried onions |
For sides we had boiled beetroot and sour cabbage. Polish sour cabbage is soooo nice! Not too sour/tangy - just right. The beetroot was nice, but I had quite enough of beetroot after all the soup.
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| Boiled beetroot |
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| Fried sour cabbage |
I really wanted to try the Polish dessert pancakes, but we were so stuffed, we just couldn't do it to ourselves to eat more :(
Overall, I would say I had a fantastic time. The food was cheap (compared to UK standards) and the portion sizes are reasonable/large. The staff were nice and attentive.
Service = 7/10
Atmosphere = 8.5/10
Food = 7/10
Recommend? Yes
Overall, I would say I had a fantastic time. The food was cheap (compared to UK standards) and the portion sizes are reasonable/large. The staff were nice and attentive.
Service = 7/10
Atmosphere = 8.5/10
Food = 7/10
Recommend? Yes
