Things you've never dreamed of

I had my Polish food cherry popped on Tuesday Wednesday. We were invited to dinner at Na Zdrowie by a friend with Polish background, who promised “something different”. Let’s call him Legoman because I’ll probably reference him a couple of times in this entry. Also at dinner was Sydney Veggo of Beyond Pesto.

Festive cock. Look, if I didn’t say it someone else would’ve.

Interior of Na Zdrowie. It’s a pretty small restaurant – cozy, but it gets noisy. The lighting here is, ahem, romantic. I’ll have to apologise in advance at how shit the pictures turned out. Time to save up for a proper DSLR, y/y? (photography lessons more like)

We had kompot to start, which is a very refreshing drink made of boiled dried fruit. Na Zdrowie’s kompot is lightly spiced with cinnamon. I feel bad because Legoman was like “Did you take a picture of the kompot? Did you?” and I’m like “yeah brah no worries” and when I checked my memory card tonight it turned out I didn’t. An arse is me!

My SO ordered deep fried mushrooms as his entree. I could have eaten a whole box of this stuff, it’s genius. Crispy on the outside, squidgy on the inside and served with a tangy, creamy sauce.

On Legoman’s recommendation I ordered the sledzik (pickled herring) as my entree. The herring fillets are wrapped around slices of apple, capsicum, onion and pickle on top of a creamy dill sauce. This is probably my favourite dish of the night. I’m already a big fan of strong tasting fish, but the contrast of textures and salty-sour-sweet flavours are a winner. This was actually a pretty big serve and I would have been happy to have just this as a main.

SV ordered the barszcz (beetroot soup) as her entree, which had tiny dumplings at the bottom of the bowl. I did take a picture of it but couldn’t edit it enough that it won’t look like blood, so I left it out.

Bread for the herring and soup.

Both SV and I had vegetarian pierogies (dumplings) for our mains. SV asked for a combination of the potato and mushroom/sauerkraut pierogies and I followed suit.The pierogies are served with a mushroom sauce.

If you know me, you’ll know that I have an intense and lasting romance with carbohydrates. With my love of carbs comes a slight guilt. It’s kind of like finding your first cousin hot – perfectly legal but slightly wrong. So, dumplings stuffed with potatoes? This hot carb-on-carb action was a whirlwind affair where my tastebuds were swept off their, uh, feet and my cellulite screams at me to be rational. Then I remembered it has cheese, therefore has some protein content in it and is perfectly OK.

The mushroom pierogies weren’t as exciting for me, but that’s because I can only have so much sauerkraut before my tastebuds start to rebel.

Red cabbage. It’s sweet and goes very well with the pierogies. Legoman also ordered a cucumber salad thing in sour cream but I hate cucumber so I didn’t take a picture of it out of spite.

Legoman has this very pretty looking meat skewer affair with what I think is horseradish sauce.

Legoman’s friend and SV’s partner had bigos, a stew with meat, sausage and cabbage. I only had a bite but it was pretty good. Sauerkraut again though, so… you know.

My SO and Legoman’s wife had the stuffed cabbage. It’s basically cabbage, right, stuffed with veal mince and served with a tomato-based sauce. I took a picture of that too but there wasn’t anything I can do with it that won’t make it look like bloodied brains on a plate. I thought it tasted slightly bland.

ON TO DESSERT, ARE YOU READY FOR THIS

I can’t remember what this one is called, except that it’s ice cream and the description promises a “flaming dressing”. This picture is taken at a shit angle because I was trying to take it super fast, fearing that the flames will die out before I can take a picture. I put away my camera and you know what? That shit burned for ages.

There wasn’t actually a flaming dressing – it had a berry sauce and they set the sugar cube next to it on fire. It came with a marshmallow biscuit that kind of tasted like Arnott’s Chocolate Royals and a bar biscuit that I can’t even remember tasting. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, but hey, it’s on fire!

The kompot, entrees, mains and two desserts cost about $40 per head. Servings are crazy massive and I would highly recommend not eating anything 12 hours prior.

Na Zdrowie
161 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
(02) 9660 1242

Any enquiries re: pronunciation should be directed to Legoman or your Polish friend.

ETA: It’s come to my attention that eatshowandtell has written a review of Na Zdrowie as well – so go and read that one if you want pictures of food that actually do them justice!