I had read about Podwale 25 on a few different travel blogs and it was less than 10 minutes from the Chopin concert, so I headed out, foot sore and stomach growling, towards this local favorite. Wednesday night had one of their signature dishes on special, crispy roasted pork knuckle, and if it was anything like the picture I saw on their website, I was all in.
When I arrived at the lobby, right outside the gates of Old Town, there were two other singles waiting for a table so we were seated along the main path on the way to the kitchen. I struck up a conversation with the single to my right and told him to check out the knuckle and he offered to join me at my tiny table so we could talk.
Will, a venture analyst from Norway in Warsaw for a Ukrainian investment conference, was the LAST person I had expected to meet that day in Warsaw. Half English and half Norwegian, and very interested in all things AI, we bonded immediately and decided to split the pork knuckle when the waiter announced the average size was one kilo. Keep that in mind for later.
The knuckle came alone so I ordered mashed potatoes to go with the fresh sauerkraut and pickle that had arrived as an appetizer. I also told the waiter I wanted to try the meringue cake I had seen in the lobby, but to go for later. My very trim companion gave me a little wink and I smiled back, hoping he wouldn’t fluffy-shame me. Turns out his wife was a militant vegan, so he was sinning as well, sharing the knuckle with me, and had no room to judge.
The knuckle arrived quickly and was a combination of crispy chicharrones (fried crispy skin) and soft pork flesh that dropped off the bone as soon as a knife came near it. The mashed potatoes were very fresh and silky smooth. I was glad I hadn’t eaten much that day because even with both Will and I’s best efforts, we barely managed to finish half. A light Kozel beer was the perfect drink and I had one to Will’s two.
It turns out that Will had lived in Sydney for 5 years prior to moving to Norway and had me take notes for EVERYTHING I needed to do in the three weeks I would be there in June. He also insisted that I check out GROK3, which was the newest AI tool he was testing out. His extra beer averaged out my slice of cake so we decided to split the bill 50/50.
The waiter arrived with the check and my gargantuan slice of meringue cake in a box. This was more for nostalgia on my part as meringue cake was the standard birthday cake in my early childhood and the very best came from Max Beever, an ice cream and dessert shop in La Paz. It is similar to an Australian pavlova with a couple of key differences. First each layer of meringue is spread out to a 10-11 inch diameter circle and built up on the edges so that there is a deep area in the middle for the filling. The first filling is a layer of Bavarian cream. Then, in the case of the Podwale cake, there is a layer of homemade strawberry jam, a syrupy mess of cooked down fruit vs a stiff, pectin packed commercial jam . Next came a small sprinkling of pineapple and then a light layer of unsweetened whipped cream. The layers are repeated until the cake reaches 18-20 inches tall.
An American can often get sticker shock in other countries when they receive a bill in a sit down restaurant. Things that are included in the U.S., such as a bread basket, are often dropped off without explanation that there is a charge if it’s left on the table outside the U.S.
Sticker shock in this case was that the Wednesday night special knuckle, advertised as 9 PLZ per 100g came out to a hefty $39 USD because it was slightly over a kilo. With the sides of mashed potato and beer, and my cake, Will and I were on the hook for $39 each. Not bad for a delicious dinner and wonderful conversation but expensive by Warsaw standards.