A corner of Poland
It describes restaurants that use traditional cooking techniques or decorate their walls with wine bottles or Buddhas.
But authenticity is often diluted by more commonly found flavours and styles so as to provide a taste of a culture’s cuisine without excluding the more conservative customer.
The Polish Corner in Huddersfield town centre is unapologetic in its authenticity.
A plate of food here, on the corner of Byram Street and St Peter’s Street, is exactly what you will find in Warsaw, Poznan or Gdansk.
There are no token gesture side salads or intricately drizzled sauces. This is hearty Polish grub and lots of it.
I was tempted by the meat platter to start, which the menu described simply as ‘ham or sausages’.
I was even more tempted by the meatballs in creamy dill sauce main course and, not wanting to double up on meat, I eventually settled on croquettes with cheese and mushroom to start.
The croquettes were the size of a couple of pencil cases - big ones that a kid has stuffed with the full spectrum of gel pens.
Instead of sparkly ink, the breadcrumbed pancake packaged a mass of shredded mushroom and stringy cheese.
It was simple and tasty.
The cheese was not so strong that it overpowered the more subtle mushrooms or its thick crepe casing. Instead, all three elements worked together to form a satisfying but heavy starter.
The croquettes were accompanied by a heap of sauerkraut, which added a sweet, sour and freshly cold respite to the warm pencil cases.
This dish cost £4.50.
For its size and taste I can’t stress enough how happy I was to pay that.
My meatball main was that Saturday’s special.
These change every day - one starter and one main, not found on the regular menu.
The plate was brought to my table filled - and I mean filled - with a pile of sauerkraut, a pile of red cabbage, a small field’s-worth of boiled potatoes and three large, grey meatballs.
The whole dish was swimming in buttery dill sauce, which gave the grey meatballs a slimy, Bushtucker trial glisten.
Totally unapologetic.
Once again it was a heavy plate of food. The meatballs were salty and seeping with butter but differentiated from the potatoes - which had also absorbed the creamy dill sauce - by their strong the overall meal but the buttery leaf to. pork flavour. coating it left on everything I don’t know if that was done to
The sauerkraut in the corner of defeated me before I could strughelp cut through the butter the plate included gratings of gle over the line. coating but it certainly did the carrot and fermented cabbage.job.Analreadyheartymealwas
Once again the Onest of shredmade that much heavier by its verall The Polish Corner is a ded veg was lubricated with butrichness. great little restaurant. ter y dill sauce. My main, like my starter, was It isn’t the best-quality food you
At the opposite corner, a mound great value. can find in Huddersfield town of sweet red cabbage was unafThe £7.50 I paid for it took my centre but if you fancy adventurfected by the sauce and offered a total bill to £12 - disappointingly ing to a different culture’s cuisine much-needed change in flavour. short of my expenses limit. - with authentically Polish cook
That said, the creamy dill sauce I washed everything down with ing and prices - you can’t go was delicious. tap water, which the waitress wrong and needn’t go anywhere
It by no means took away from added a lemon slice and a mint else.