Trip to Poland

 I would like to share what I ate on the road trip in Poland, Wroclaw-Krakow-Straszydle-Bolelawiec! 

First stop in Wroclaw and we found a local market.  I though this was a pie with cheese but I figured out the whole thing was a cheese, after a bite.  It's one of Polish speciality smoked sheep cheese and called "Oscypek".  It's salty and smokey, perfect snack for beer!  

Pierogi is a MUST-TRY in Poland.  There are various kinds of fillings but I'd recommend potato and cheese.  You won't take time to be an addict to the thick and chewy texture of the dough.   We stopped at Krakow to meet an old friend of my husband, Marek, and he took us to the self-service restaurant "Polakowski" saying this is the best place to have pierogi in Krakow, where we had our second stop.  It's a very simple and casual place with a whole in a wall kind of atmosphere (I didn't see any other tourists) and a plate of 8 dumplings was 9 Zloty(=2EUROS!!).  English menu is available.

Polakowski 
Plac Wszystkich Świętych 10

Tel. 12 430 21 56

After driving 1,060km from Hamburg, we arrived in a beautiful village of Straszydle.  Marek's mama received us with a plenty of home cooking and local fresh food.  Poland is famous for tasty soups and I wanted to try "Zurek", a signature soup made of soured rye flour.  We had tried it at the hotel breakfast in Wroclaw but mom's Zurek was 10 times tastier, of course.  Served with fried bacon, boiled egg and farmer's cheese.

Hams and sausages are also very good in Poland.  This simple sausage with pork, garlic, salt&pepper, that the father was smoking all the morning was the best sausage I've ever had.  With no added preservatives or flavor enhancer.  Also, you may want to try "Bigos", hunter's stew with pork meat, sausage and soured cabbage when you visit Poland.  You can savour the essence of rustic Polish cuisine.