Garden, wine and tiramisu fail to balance cuisine's shortfall
Semendria in Warsaw's distant Bemowo district calls. By this standard, the hyper-inconvieniently located Vera Italia should have four stars in the Michelin guide. But after eating there, I decided next time I get an urge for Italian, I'll stick to the centrally located Chianti.
As far as getting there, just call a taxi, and bring along a spare map just in case. When I gave the driver the address, he nodded as if to assure me that he knew exactly where it was, but his eyes in the rear view mirror told a different story: "Sachocka? Where the hell is that?" they said. We drove 50 meters then stopped as the driver consulted a street map he pulled from the glove box. We took off again, in the general direction of the airport, and the last landmark I recognized was the Curtis Plaza, before we pulled into a maze-like residential neighborhood and, after some twists and turns, found the street.
Even after the cab pulled up to the address, I was still not seeing any Italian restaurant. All I saw was a dingy auto parts shop. "There's supposed to be an Italian restaurant here," I told the driver, puzzled. He finally spotted the "Vera Italia" sign on the side of the building, half hidden by a leafy tree.
I waited on the sidewalk a few minutes until my dining companion arrived, ambling up cheerfully on foot. "Nick! How the hell are you?" said the diplomat from an unnamed Western nation, shaking my hand firmly.
We hadn't seen each other for more than half a year and had lots of catching up to do.
We took a peek inside. Empty save for two young waitresses and a girl behind the bar, Vera is decorated in a style that might be called "1970s American Rec Room." Someone has gone berserk with wood paneling, using it to cover every exposed surface in the room. Matching tables and chairs complete the effect, which is akin to that experienced in a northern Alaskan "white out," whereby driving snow blurs the horizon and makes earth and sky indistinguishable. Only here the effect is created by blond wood.
"Hey Nick, why don't we just check out the garden," the diplomat suggested, and I agreed. It was a beautiful summer evening, perfect for outdoor dining. Vera Italia's large garden is surrounded by a local dzialki, the cooperatively owned gardens where block-dwellers come to tend flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. We chose a table next to some cherry trees, and within moments of sitting down a friendly young waitress arrived with menus.
"Something to drink?" she asked. I ordered a large EB, and the diplomat asked if the restaurant had Budweiser. "The Czech one, allright? I saw a Miller in there!" he shouted, ordering it only once he was assured it was the beer from Budejovice, not St. Louis.
The menu is long and everything on it is affordably priced, with most starters running zl. 5 to zl. 15 and most mains zl. 15 to zl. 25. The short, all Italian wine list is also a nice surprise, with most bottles either zl. 30 or zl. 35. I chose a '98 Bardolino Classico, a dry, fruity treat, the perfect thing for quaffing outdoors on a summer evening.
The garden quickly filled up with other diners, more than half of whom were speaking Italian to each other or into their tiny mobile phones that rang incessantly during the meal. Two little boys in shorts chased each other around the garden, shouting in Italian. Even some of the waitresses spoke Italian. By this measure at least, Vera was veritably Italian and far more authentic than Chianti, which was full of English and German speaking tourists on a recent night out.
We munched on the bread and garlic butter our waitress provided while we waited for our meals. First came the diplomat's tomato stuffed with tuna (zl. 12), a small but delicious dish by his account. I started with a medium-sized bowl of bucatini, a thicker, ropier kind of pasta than spaghetti, which I had alla Amatriciana, or under a spicy, chile-flavored tomato sauce and sprinkled with black olives and bacon. This was good, too.
The diplomat followed up with a fat, gooey hunk of lasagna, cheesy on the inside and laddled over the top with tomato sauce. He liked it, but it was not enough apparently, as he wore a slightly disappointed expression when finished. He ordered a salad with mozzarella and tomatoes to tide him over till dessert.
I ordered scaloppine alla limone (zl. 16), a veal chop in lemon sauce. I have to say this was the most disappointing dish I've yet been served in Warsaw. I had a big white plate on which lay two scraggly looking, breaded and fried, pieces of veal. A sad piece of lettuce tried to be decorative, but the whole thing just said "blah." Then I tasted it, and the lemon juice was so overpowering it tasted like they'd let the meat marinate in the stuff overnight. I could have had the same dish in any milkbar in Warsaw.
We'd heard good things about the place's tiramisu, so the diplomat and I both ordered it for dessert. It is served in gigantic portions, the creamy top oozing over the liqueur-drenched cake below. We both liked that, and I was only half finished with mine by the time the diplomat was chasing the last crumbs around his plate with a spoon. It just goes to show stirring up (and resolving) diplomatic crises all day works up quite an appetite.
We finished with two nuclear espressos, served in thimble-sized cups. Those were as authentically Italian as health codes probably allow. Our whole meal came to zl. 158 ($39.50). The garden was very nice, the waitresses pleasant, and the wine was good and cheap. If it wasn't so far off the beaten track, I'd be there all the time just to sit in the garden on warm summer nights and enjoy the wine and tiramisu. But on a strictly food-based call, the decision on good Italian in Warsaw has to stay Chianti.
As far as getting there, just call a taxi, and bring along a spare map just in case. When I gave the driver the address, he nodded as if to assure me that he knew exactly where it was, but his eyes in the rear view mirror told a different story: "Sachocka? Where the hell is that?" they said. We drove 50 meters then stopped as the driver consulted a street map he pulled from the glove box. We took off again, in the general direction of the airport, and the last landmark I recognized was the Curtis Plaza, before we pulled into a maze-like residential neighborhood and, after some twists and turns, found the street.
Even after the cab pulled up to the address, I was still not seeing any Italian restaurant. All I saw was a dingy auto parts shop. "There's supposed to be an Italian restaurant here," I told the driver, puzzled. He finally spotted the "Vera Italia" sign on the side of the building, half hidden by a leafy tree.
I waited on the sidewalk a few minutes until my dining companion arrived, ambling up cheerfully on foot. "Nick! How the hell are you?" said the diplomat from an unnamed Western nation, shaking my hand firmly.
We hadn't seen each other for more than half a year and had lots of catching up to do.
We took a peek inside. Empty save for two young waitresses and a girl behind the bar, Vera is decorated in a style that might be called "1970s American Rec Room." Someone has gone berserk with wood paneling, using it to cover every exposed surface in the room. Matching tables and chairs complete the effect, which is akin to that experienced in a northern Alaskan "white out," whereby driving snow blurs the horizon and makes earth and sky indistinguishable. Only here the effect is created by blond wood.
"Hey Nick, why don't we just check out the garden," the diplomat suggested, and I agreed. It was a beautiful summer evening, perfect for outdoor dining. Vera Italia's large garden is surrounded by a local dzialki, the cooperatively owned gardens where block-dwellers come to tend flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. We chose a table next to some cherry trees, and within moments of sitting down a friendly young waitress arrived with menus.
"Something to drink?" she asked. I ordered a large EB, and the diplomat asked if the restaurant had Budweiser. "The Czech one, allright? I saw a Miller in there!" he shouted, ordering it only once he was assured it was the beer from Budejovice, not St. Louis.
The menu is long and everything on it is affordably priced, with most starters running zl. 5 to zl. 15 and most mains zl. 15 to zl. 25. The short, all Italian wine list is also a nice surprise, with most bottles either zl. 30 or zl. 35. I chose a '98 Bardolino Classico, a dry, fruity treat, the perfect thing for quaffing outdoors on a summer evening.
The garden quickly filled up with other diners, more than half of whom were speaking Italian to each other or into their tiny mobile phones that rang incessantly during the meal. Two little boys in shorts chased each other around the garden, shouting in Italian. Even some of the waitresses spoke Italian. By this measure at least, Vera was veritably Italian and far more authentic than Chianti, which was full of English and German speaking tourists on a recent night out.
We munched on the bread and garlic butter our waitress provided while we waited for our meals. First came the diplomat's tomato stuffed with tuna (zl. 12), a small but delicious dish by his account. I started with a medium-sized bowl of bucatini, a thicker, ropier kind of pasta than spaghetti, which I had alla Amatriciana, or under a spicy, chile-flavored tomato sauce and sprinkled with black olives and bacon. This was good, too.
The diplomat followed up with a fat, gooey hunk of lasagna, cheesy on the inside and laddled over the top with tomato sauce. He liked it, but it was not enough apparently, as he wore a slightly disappointed expression when finished. He ordered a salad with mozzarella and tomatoes to tide him over till dessert.
I ordered scaloppine alla limone (zl. 16), a veal chop in lemon sauce. I have to say this was the most disappointing dish I've yet been served in Warsaw. I had a big white plate on which lay two scraggly looking, breaded and fried, pieces of veal. A sad piece of lettuce tried to be decorative, but the whole thing just said "blah." Then I tasted it, and the lemon juice was so overpowering it tasted like they'd let the meat marinate in the stuff overnight. I could have had the same dish in any milkbar in Warsaw.
We'd heard good things about the place's tiramisu, so the diplomat and I both ordered it for dessert. It is served in gigantic portions, the creamy top oozing over the liqueur-drenched cake below. We both liked that, and I was only half finished with mine by the time the diplomat was chasing the last crumbs around his plate with a spoon. It just goes to show stirring up (and resolving) diplomatic crises all day works up quite an appetite.
We finished with two nuclear espressos, served in thimble-sized cups. Those were as authentically Italian as health codes probably allow. Our whole meal came to zl. 158 ($39.50). The garden was very nice, the waitresses pleasant, and the wine was good and cheap. If it wasn't so far off the beaten track, I'd be there all the time just to sit in the garden on warm summer nights and enjoy the wine and tiramisu. But on a strictly food-based call, the decision on good Italian in Warsaw has to stay Chianti.
