Toronto is the home of many communities of immigrants from Easter Europe. Like other communities, they also have their entrepreneurs who invest in restaurants where we can taste their cuisine. This last summer, I decided to visit some places where I can find Eastern European dishes. .
Café Polonez
This restaurant is located in Roncesvalles Ave, in the heart of the Polish community of Toronto. It serves a great choice of traditional Polish and Eastern European dishes. It offers delivery, take-out and a quite patio where you can enjoy a great moment. You can read more here
I decided to go for options where I can taste as many dishes as possible. I asked for a Platter for 1, that contains Schnitzel, bigos and pierogi. Schnitzel is a thin slice of meat, breaded and fried. The name is German and comes from the word “Sniz” that means “Slice”. It might come from the famous Wiener Schnitzel. Different kinds of meats may be used (veal, pork, mouton, chicken, turkey).
This place offers the options of pork and chicken, I took the last one. Platter 1 comes with Polonez Schnitzel (In polish: sznycel z pieczarkami = Schnitzel with mushrooms), served with mushrooms and salad. Bigos, is often translated as hunter’s stew. It’s chopped meat (usually a sausage) stewed with sauerkraut and fresh cabbage. The bigos served in this place contains pieces of sausages and pork. For me, it was the first time I eat bigos, and I enjoyed the combination of flavours, from savoury to sour. New ideas for dishes to cook in future.
Pierogi do not need presentation in Canada. They are so popular that can be easily found frozen in supermarkets. These Eastern European dumplings, commonly boiled and filled with different kinds of filing like potatoes, cheese or mushrooms, were brought to North America by Polish and Ukrainians immigrants. For some reason, their Polish name was widely adopted in our vocabulary (In Ukrainian they are known as Varenyky or Вареники).
In short, Platter No 1 (As they named it) contains a representation of homemade dishes finely done. A great introduction to Polish cuisine if you are in Toronto. To complete my order I added a side of Polish sausage and another of Cabbage roll.
The Cabbage roll (called in Polish : Gołąbki) served in this restaurant, is stuffed with rice and pork meat and topped with tomato sauce. There is a vegetarian version filled with rice and mushrooms, but I did not try it. The polish sausage served here is topped with fried onions.
For drink I requested a glass of Kompot or compote, a sweet non-alcoholic beverage made of fruits. You can obtain it cooking fruits like apricot, peaches, apples, pears, plums and many others. It is served cold in Summer. In my home they used to prepare it for Christmas and New year season.
Europe Restaurant and Bar
It is a Hungarian restaurant located in 3030 Bathurst st. It’s an excellent place to taste traditional Hungarian and other Eastern European dishes.
As a main dish, I tried Mátrai Borzaska, perhaps the Hungarian version of the Schnitzel. Mátrai Borzaska is also a thin slice of breaded meat, but coated in a mixture of grated potato, egg and flour and served topped with sour cream, garlic and cheese. The meat used by this restaurant was chicken. This dish was served with noodles (Resembling the Spaetzel) and cabbage salad. It all had a great taste.
As a side dish I had a cabbage roll. In Hungarian language this is called Töltött Káposzta and it is served with a cabbage salad and sour cream. It is stuffed with pork and rice, but the Hungarian version often includes Paprika in the stuffing mix. Notice that the word Káposzta used for cabbage, resembles the word used for cabbage used in some Slavic languages (Kapusta).
