18 July 2006
Review: Harry’s Polish Menu
For some reason, when I think of Harry’s Bar and Café in Dun Laoghaire, my mind attempts to insert a projected image of Rick’s Café Americain from Casablanca. The difference here being that as much as I would like to think of Harry’s as the gathering den of the Polish expats in Ireland (which it is clearly not) I can’t see the Polish equivalent of La Marsellaise being chanted there, teary-eyed, any time soon. That is not to say that I suspect the Polish menu served there of late, from 19.00 to 22.00, is not sincere - quite the opposite, in my mouth (and from the Polish perspective I come from the north, and a wee bit east) the mix of flavours evoked feelings of familiarity from home and school. And note that when I say that something reminds me of school food, I mean it as a sincere and heartfelt compliment. Let me get back to this some other time.
My husband had suggested that we give this new Polish menu a go, prompted by the good experiences his workmate and
the latter’s Polish girlfriend had there, and perhaps partly also by the fact that one of our anniversaries fell on the appropriate Friday (It’s complicated). We are both eager to experiment with previously unknown or little known cuisines and generally always willing to try out new restaurants, for which I’m sure my dear readers will be grateful. We review so that you won’t have to.
Harry’s is very unassuming from the outside, and the interior is kindly said Spartan. However, it doesn’t feel cold or unwelcoming, and the staff were quick to attend to us. Harry’s don’t serve alcohol but before we asked what was available, we were offered “Polish fruit drink” which turned out to be rhubarb and currants boiled together, possibly in a juice. It arrived hot, straight from the pot we presume, and cooled into a very tasty summery drink.
The menu itself includes three courses for the princely price of 15 euro. Harry’s advertise it as “Polish food, Polish atmosphere, Polish prices!” Side dishes are available at an additional cost. The menu is far from long - Only about 4-5 different dishes in each course, but it has to be remembered that the place is small and as such this enterprise should be only complimented. From my point of view, it usually means less with the having to choose, but in actual fact even that turned out to be harder than I expected. The menu is presented both in English and in Polish.
To begin with, I selected pierogi, dumplings made of meat and vegetables. I’d have had a hard time distinguishing them from dim sum dumplings, but thankfully there was nobody there to break my knees if I got it wrong and they were quite equally delicious. My husband’s barszcz czerwony (try saying that with your mouth full of soup) was far less borschey than I expected, but at this point I’m entirely at a loss to say whether it was a poor man’s version or whether it was a bona fide Polish variant. Thin beetroot soup with stuffed meat dumplings in it was what it was, and it did taste very good.
For the main, we both selected golabki. They were advertised as pork meatballs, with a side mention that they were wrapped in cabbage leaves, but I would have instantly identified them as stuffed cabbage leaves. Like stuffed vine leaves, you barbarians, only with meat. Now when I was a wee lass these were one of my favourite foods. Throughout the menu, the foods were very hearty and came with vegetables firmly on the side, with the mains having a choice of mashed or boiled potatoes. This is where the home/school-cooked food really hit me. It is a strange sensation to be sitting in a café eating such things, when part of your mind is convinced you should be sitting at your old kitchen table, or in the school canteen. Moreover, this is what this food essentially was: homecooked fare, far from the complexities of gourmet menus. It was very filling and I was quite unable to finish my second cabbage roll, but my husband kindly helped with that.
Desserts continued the same general trend. Homecooked, filling, unpretentious. I chose sernik, baked cheesecake supposedly with raisins, but I found none of them and instead peaches or apricots between the cheese and the base. The slice was massive and I wept inside due to the difficulties I had already encountered with the main course. The cheese was only very slightly sweetened and it had that particular almost-lemony tang to it which made me suspect the cake was made with quark rather than any “ordinary” cheese we would use in these parts of the world. It was also quite dry - due to its nature rather than any negligence, I’m sure - and benefited from the application of whipped cream served alongside, which sadly was not very much. My husband had karpatka, vanilla custard filled chewy choux pastry, which he declared delicious. I know I tasted it myself, but have no other recollection of it than that it was good, but nothing special. I was clearly correct.
We left extremely full and satisfactory sated, with the overall bill including the food and the fruit juice at €32. Our tip was generous.