Krakow
The Thai restaurant in our apartment building, Molam had delicious food. It was very busy; we didn’t have a reservation when we arrived around 6 on a Tuesday and had to wait. The som tam taeng and isaan-style lamb laap were both delicious. The sticky rice was properly cooked. Try the passion fruit soda.
Kluska Na Placu. For us, this was typical and adequate Polish fare, but nothing memorable.
Klezmer Huis. This one was a real dilemma. The music was great, but the restaurant and surrounding building are very cramped (I’d say it falls into the ‘fire trap’ category), noisy with the large tables of guests who didn’t like to stop talking during the music, and the curtains on the windows left open for ventilation kept blowing stuff off our table. I thought that the food was overpriced for the quality. We had the cholent, Jerusalem soup, gefilte fish, kugel and hamantaschen. I wouldn’t go again.
Pierwszy Stopien. We ate here twice. The menu is small but the food is well-presented, tasty and reasonably priced. We had the tomato soup with poured noodles, goose pierogis, “Polish cheesecake” for dessert and lots of plum vodka, and no, that’s not why we liked it so much!
Trattoria La Campana. For a break, we tried this Italian trattoria. The food was good, and there was a pretty good selection of mains. We enjoyed the tomato soup (again), beef cheek, risotto, and gemelli with meat sauce and pine nuts. They also cheerfully prepared an off-the-menu small side salad.
Pod Baranem. I liked Pod Baranem. We had a 5 pm reservation, but finished at Wawel around 4. They were happy to take us early. At the advice of the waiter, I made a meal of a couple appetizers. I had the cabbage stuffed with buckwheat, and, craving a non-cabbage, non-potato vegetable, a tomato and mozzarella salad. It was a good choice; even the appetizer portions were very large. My husband had the boar and a mixed salad, which he enjoyed very much.
Cesarsko Krolewskie Pierogi. Yet more pierogi. We split orders of Ruskie and pulled pork knuckle meat with some zurek for both of us, too. Very inexpensive; sidewalk seating available.
Wroclaw
Wroclawska. The portions of Ukrainian pierogi, beef stew with potato pancake and a salad with camembert were so large that we couldn’t finish them. Nice outdoor seating on the Rynek.
Jolie Brasserie Café. We had both breakfast and lunch here. The menu was a nice mix of European and Middle Eastern dishes. The vegetarian choices were very nice and the service was excellent.
Restaurant/Pizzeria O Sole Mio – Adequate Italian food at reasonable prices. Nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad. We were there for a late lunch; the restaurant was very crowded, both inside and out, but the atmosphere was pleasant and the service was good.
Konspira – This place was a hoot. We booked the “back room” living room from the Solidarity days, which was fun and much quieter than the main dining room. We had the pierogi platter for 2 and cheesecake. Both were delicious.
Warsaw – Restaurant overdoses from Krakow and Wroclaw and a well-equipped kitchen meant we ate at lightly home, cobbling together stuff from Zabka, other than a cafeteria lunch at POLIN and few coffee/pastry stops during the day.