U Kucharzy - Warsaw, Poland

Ahh Eastern Europe.  Home of my forefathers who splayed across a land with a moving target border and ambiguous family history.  Somewhere they trudged and it may be called Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.  Two summers ago, I had an amusing and unstructured trip through Prague, Krakow, and Warsaw with an exciting drive - some may call it "death-defying" like our hotel concierge in Prague - from Prague to Krakow (we trained to Warsaw).


Having no exact agenda and 24 hours in Warsaw, I reached out to a very peripheral friend from college who i reconnected with on ASW for a dining suggestion.  Without hesitation, she suggested U Kucharzy (conveniently located across the street from our hotel, the Bristol).  

The story goes, a famous Polish restaurateur was searching for his next venue and checked out the restaurant of a closed grand hotel, Europejski Hotel, which he hated - it was huge.  But, he looked at the kitchen and realized, this is it.  The kitchen would be the kitchen...and the restaurant.  For those of you who love the experience of a chef's table, it doesn't get much better than this - every table, is essentially a chef's table.  And for those without a direct view of the kitchen, the final preparation of all dishes happens table-side with a mobile-kitchen-like cart.  Most dramatic and delectable was the steak tartare, prepared from a slab of beef and seasoning ranging from mushrooms to capers, with very sharp and precise knife skills... 

insane knife skills

We feasted on the game-y cuisine with great enthusiasm!  Venison, Goose, Wild Boar with beets, dumplings, and cranberry and cabbage slaw.  

plating of the tartare

flambee action on our cranberry-cabbage reduction

the goose (pre-sides)

the wild boar

digging in - dumplings for our starch

Taking in our front row view of the kitchen

their specialty foods shop

And then we toured the premises as we shut the place down.  We became friendly with the manager, cousin of the owner.  He had actually lived in manhattan and was scouting a place to open a NY-based Kucharzy.  Unfortunately, the skyrocketing rents of 2006/7 made the endeavor, near impossible.  I felt sad for them, but secretly - i have to admit - a wee bit happy.  A delightful discovery as such just feels that much more special when you can't just hop in a taxi to experience it...

Icelandic Adventure - Memorial Day Weekend 2007

When a newly won client happens to be a vodka distilled in Iceland (Reyka), you can bet I didn't hesitate for a moment to hop on a plane to tour the distillery and get to know the homeland. If that trip can happen over a long weekend and four of my best friends can come along for the ride, even better.  So, that's what we did.

I'll leave the details of the natural topography (like being on the moon with geysers and steam escaping randomly across the land), the non-stop partying, and the omnipresent summer sun on the side and cut to the chase.  There are three culinarily notable facts about iceland.

1) They make a very good hot dog that attracts leaders from around the world (Clinton, Gorbachev, etc).  Involving lamb in addition to other animal meat in a natural casing.  And, yes, it's served from a hot dog stand.  The place is called Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur - just rolls off the tongue.   And here it is in all its glory:

2) The puffin is the national bird.  It is also the national dish.  Grilled bald eagle anyone?

3) You can eat whale there legally.

For points (2) and (3), you can get your fix as we did at Sægreifinn - a seafood shack on the water where you pick your raw skewers of these delicacies (i use that term lightly) and they cook em up.  


Upon arrival, the "shack" element went from really "local" feeling to "we just got written up in the NY Times and now the jewish population in Iceland is now outnumbered 3 to 1 by the patrons of this restaurant."  Yes, the Times loved their tasty lobster soup.


Of course, we picked the puffin and the whale.  As you will note there are no pictures as we were too engrossed in what we were eating.  The puffin was game-y.  Gamier than any venison, bison, elk or mythical wooly mammoth one could eat.  It probably had something to do with the preparation which was pretty simple - kill puffin.  Cut up puffin.  Throw on fire.  When i saw the fearless Juice wretch, i knew this was something special.  The whale, prepared with equal grace, was strangely enough exactly what is should have been.  If you could create a taste spectrum with "meat" on one end and "fish" on the other, whale would have sat perfectly equidistant.  Fortunately, the lobster soup was pretty amazing.  Unfortunately, we ate it first and therefore could not use it to cleanse our poor tongues for what we just subjected them to.  


I also had the good fortune to tour the Reyka distillery - about an hour's drive into the middle of nowhere.  We arrived at the  aluminum-sided silo with a warm welcome.

Yes, the only distillery in Iceland and one of the world's most environmentally friendly distilleries.  And i was fortunate enough to get a personal tour from the master distiller, Kristmar Olafsson.  We became the best of friends...

The extremely impressive Copper Still was certainly the highlight of the tour.  This is where the magic happens!

Some of the goods before being shipped around the world.

If you ever find yourself cruising through Bourgarnes, Iceland, make sure to swing by and say hi to Kristmar!