Haka

What do you get when you have a Kiwi chef and an Irish owner of a restaurant/bar/expat rugby watching location in Warsaw? Well, you get Haka bar of course.

It has classics from NZ like sausage rolls as well as Australian food like kangaroo steaks and pavlovas. You can get Prosecco on tap, but I prefer the guiness.

It is a nice place, especially when there is sun. There is a Venturilo (city bike) stand 5m away and it is near Chmielna street if you feel like a pączki later. Haka is on Bracka 20 in the centre of town, so there is no real excuse to miss it.... unless you aren't cool of course.....

Tempure prawns

Octopus salad

The Australian pavlova ;)

A pretty decent little location to sit down, drink a few ales or sparkling beverages and watch the world go by.

bzik kulinarny

Sometimes you need to get out of the house for dinner. I know I love cooking, but often you just feel the need to do something else. To find something else to eat. One of our favourite little places is only a few streets from our house and it is called Bzik Kulinarny, meaning 'food obsession'. It is a Polish restaurant but has influences from French and Italian food, and has some really lovely dishes. It actually has the feel of being a restaurant as if in France or Italy and has the feel of quality goods coming in so that is why the dishes coming out are good.

I started with a Czech beer.

What about a beetroot salad?

Steak nice and rare in forest mushroom sauce

Veal in Calvados cream

Simple almost austere decor.

all finished with a wafer thin plum tart.

A little restaurant with a big heart. I hope that gets the tastebuds running wet!

The advantages of getting old

Whilst many people fear getting old, for me, it isn't an issue. I have no real reason to worry, I have a wife who is younger than me and strong enough to carry me or push me in a wheel chair. Also, I feel the older I get, the more I am learning and the more I can fit into my life and brain. I am reading more books now than when I was at school and HAD to read them. I see more movies than ever before in my life. I am taking more photos now and feel more creative. I have the chance to bake, brew, bottle, and butcher most anything. I am experiencing another new culture in my life, possibly my most foreign. Many of my friends and peers are now having children or more children. I have no idea how they have the time, energy or willingness.

So, enough preaching, now to my birthday. Marty took me to lunch as my birthday this year was conveniently located on a Friday, perfect for a lazy day and slightly longer weekend. I just did my classes in the morning so that I could start the weekend with Lunch. My lovely wife and I have a few favourite restaurants, however as we love cooking so often ourselves, we rarely visit them. A couple of them are Zielnik and Villa Nouva I can thoroughly recommend these if you are looking for a great quality meal with really high quality service. So, we thought we would go to something new for my "special" day. My students, specifically Sarge and Ola, had recommended Stary Dom (The Old House) for its beef tatar or is it Tartare or tartar (there are multiple spellings of this). As I mentioned in my post about the Tatar Village, I had never had this rare meal. Notice the pun. So to the Domek it is!

Awaiting the food and included pomp and ceremony.

Nothing a little sour cream and chives can't help

Marty's stuffed capsicums

The amazing chopping man

Hands are just a blur

Add some pickles, some onion, a little marinated mushroom, some egg, salt, pepper maybe some paprika yum.

Check out the video above, Marty without knowing it, gives a great story.

The finished product, 25PLN 8.55AUD 5.60GBP 9.10USD

Wack it on some fresh bread and....

Bob's your Uncle. As the saying goes. It tastes pretty darned good.

So while we wait we take in the surroundings.

The tatar was really good, having the man prepare it in front of you was a great treat as well as the fact that you know it is fresh and not some old mince that had been laying around days.

The salmon with new season asparagus

Pork schnitzel with bigos (23PLN 7.85AUD 8.40US 5.30GBP)

It certainly is well organised.

A quick review would read like this, the food was pleasant, Tartare was really good, although of course I have no comparison to this meal. The schnitzel and salmon were fine, not outstanding, service was prompt and attentive. So it all appears swimmingly. Until we got the bill, being my birthday I just paid it and never read it as we had had a lovely day. Note to self, always check the bill, when I got home I realised they had charged us for a couple of things we didn't have, and it wasn't like the restaurant was busy, and the prices were already upper-mid for Poland especially for the Salmon which was fish of the day. Oh well still was fun.

Tea for two.

I stopped off to buy Marty some tea as a birthday present because it isn't your birthday thing like some parents do for the child whose birthday it isn't. Thanks Marty for the great day, may many more continue.

The way it will all end up.