Dom Aleksandra
Chez Alexandre
ul. Aliska 10
Telephone: 620-9518
Hours: Monday-Friday: 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: Noon-10:30 p.m.
Reservations and credit cards
accepted
This is a cautionary tale. It's a true story of appearances and reality, and it happened just the other week in Warsaw.
It began on a Friday night when Robert and Iza agreed to join me for dinner. Now, I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but Varna, the Bulgarian restaurant that used to nestle underneath the back corner of the Metropol Hotel on Aleje Jerozolimskie, has a new home at ul. Mazowiecka 12. The irony that it's next door to one of Warsaw's top Polish restaurants, Kuznia Smaku, was not lost on us.
It seems that although Varna has changed locations, little else about it has. The cardboard cutout of the jolly fat Bulgarian chef who used to stand outside the restaurant in all weather, is still there. As is the photo menu display. The picture of those pale-green cabbage rolls is still featured, along with the gravy splashes from circa December 1999.
A row of moustachioed men waited inside the restaurant's door, one of whom, looking a little unsteady on his feet, and with the rotund proportions of the cardboard silhouette outside, helped me with my coat. The tables still have the same red Bulgarian tableclothes and plastic flowers. Indeed, the vinyl-leafed menu has not changed one iota either. The place had a good crowd probably longtime fans of Varna who had sought out its new location. If you want to know, the food is cheap, hot and hearty, but after conferring with my dining companions, we decided to do the bolt and dine elsewhere.
Without so much as a sideways glance at the row of smiling moustachioed men, we were out the door and hotfooting it to a place that has been on the Warsaw restaurant scene since January Chez Alexandre. I don't know how many times I'd passed this French restaurant. At night, with its red neon wave running across its front, and its dark smoky glass, it appears rather intriguing. But inside, if Varna has the look of an upmarket Bulgarian version of a 'bar mleczny,' Chez Alexandre looks like a down-market version of Cheers.
A wooden bar sits in the middle surrounded by brass stools, with rather saucy modern oil paintings of nudes doing all manner of things decorating the walls. The dark timber and navy blue color scheme is rather attractive now, if only Woody Harrelson had been working there on the night we visited. A couple of locals were propping up the bar instead, and apart from them and us, and about five staff members, the restaurant was empty. But Iza, who works nearby, assures me at lunch times there is a steady flow of hungry office workers who frequent Chez Alexandre for its two-course lunch special.
The restaurant also has a delicatessen next door that sells a small selection of sandwiches, cakes and pastries, but apart from that, calling it a French delicatessen is a misnomer. It's just shelves of your usual Polish fare of sausages, cheese, pretzels and tinned herring.
With so many tables to choose from, we went for one of the comfy booths where we could watch the busy traffic zoom along ulica Sliska. The menu is concise, and in Polish, so Robert and Iza did the navigating.
I started with the poultry liver with apple succulent morsels of chopped, pan-fried liver served with pieces of apple that had been lightly seared in butter. It was melt-in-the-mouth, although I was curious to know what sort of poultry it was because the livers looked too big to be from a chicken.
"Maybe they're turkey livers," Robert said.
"Or ostrich livers," Iza suggested.
Either way, I'd go close to saying that it's the best liver I've ever eaten.
Robert was tempted to choose the beef carpaccio until I told him that it is thin slices of raw beef. Instead he chose the fried Camembert with cranberry sauce- and indeed, that's what he got, an entire fried Camembert, not the few little chunks that I'm more familiar with. Fried Camembert is like the vegetarian version of a fried saveloy sausage it's super rich, super fatty and you either like it or you don't. Thankfully Robert did but he found the sauce a little too tart.
It's hard to go wrong with a mozzarella and tomato salad and Iza's plate-sized starter was good, but she thought it was drowning in a heavy-handed dousing of vinaigrette dressing.
From there, things started to get a little strange. Despite having a selection of 32 cocktails, and Heineken on tap, the waiter told us that Chez Alexandre has no wine list. Later, when I spoke to the owner over the phone, he assured me there is indeed a wine list. But on the night we made do with a few glasses of the house red that were not bad at all.
For my main dish, I asked for the "golden" pork. It was a huge disappointment. In a previous life, I think this pork had been the sole of an old boot. It was so tough and thick that cutting it was bad enough, let alone attempting to chew. It came with frozen veggies that had been boiled and something that tasted like packaged gravy although it did contain some damn hot, and good, peppercorns. I have to concede that the fried potatoes were simply delectable. But after my wonderful starter, I was very disappointed and only ate a few mouthfuls of my pork.
Iza's salmon was cooked to perfection but it was served with a yellow-colored sauce that was too rich and overpowered the subtle flavors of the fish. Again, it came with those awful frozen vegetables that have the texture of soggy cardboard and the flavor to match.
As for Robert's duck in orange sauce, it was covered in the most mysterious version of an orange sauce that any of us had ever seen. We were all expecting his dish to be a version of the French classic, duck a l'orange. It looked like lime-green slime with yellow chunks; something akin to the goo that Ridley Scott used to great effect in his Alien movies. It certainly tasted OK, but it was so disconcerting to the eye, that I had to stare at it in disbelief for 10 minutes before I could pluck up the courage to put some in my mouth. The duck that was hiding underneath the sauce was shredded and had no skin. It was a little on the tough side, but was tasty.
We checked the dessert options with the waiter apple strudel with ice cream and Viennese cheesecake, but after seeing that green sauce, I was too scared to try anything else. Still, the owner tells me that soon he is opening an upstairs dining area with a summer terrace. Now if Chez Alexandre could iron out a few problems with its main courses, it could be worth a visit come warmer weather. Dinner for three including drinks came to zl. 220 ($53).
On the menu:
Mozzarella and tomato salad zl. 25
Fried Camembert zl. 21
Liver with apple zl. 17
Grilled Salmon zl. 36
Duck with orange sauce zl. 39
"Golden" Pork zl. 38
