Knock-out prices keep pub from making final round
The Tiger Pub is, despite the name, a restaurant recently opened along the "Royal Route," from plac Zamkowy all the way down to Wilanow. That's a great location for any kind of retail because of all the foot traffic. That might be just enough to keep this place in business, but unfortunately, the convenient location is about the only reason I'd go back.
My expectations were not high to begin with. The place is a "vanity restaurant" a big star puts his name on the restaurant and is banking on the name to draw diners.
If movie stars, basketball gods and homerun heroes can do it, why not a boxer? The big name behind "Tiger Pub" is former world welterweight champion Dariusz "Tiger" Michalczewski.
I went over for lunch on a recent weekday, and invited ex-WBJ reviewer Carmine LaBruno to join me. To find the entrance, its necessary to go through a gate and walk through to the back of the building. The door leads down into a cellar. "There's not a lot of cellar restaurants in this city," Carmine said.
We descended into the restaurant, which is layed out in a warren of little rooms and alcoves leading to the main dining room/bar. The main room was quite large, with tables for about 30 people. It was completely empty. "Not really a lunch place," Carmine noted.
We took seats at a big round table that could have sat eight. Rather than go with a boxing theme (all for the best, probably), the restaurant plays off of the star's nickname, Tiger. It is designed to look like a cave, with rough hewn, fake stone walls carrying imitation tiger paw prints. Lascaux-era cave drawings decorate the walls. We sat down and ordered a cappuccino for Carmine and cola for me. On returning with beverages, the waitress smiled and told us that she hoped we would be settling our bill in cash, as they could not take credit cards. "Cash is fine, I'll just need a Faktura VAT," I responded. With that smile still plastered across her face, she told me that there would be no Faktura, because she didn't know how to write one. "Carmine, she says I can't get a Faktura," I said. "Tell her that's against the law, and someone better give you a Faktura," he told me. "This is going to be a problem " I began to tell the waitress, before she cut me off and hustled back to the kitchen, saying "OK., OK., we write Faktura." Round one went to us, but that's the first time I ever had to spar for the Faktura as a first course.
The menu, like our waitress, was Polish-language only. We asked for an English version but none is available. "Kind of stupid for a place that could attract tourists," Carmine said. With some difficulty, we gleaned the menu is divided into "rounds" like a boxing match. Rounds one, two and three are starters, salads and soups. Starters and salads run zl. 18-zl. 25, and include such usual suspects as carpaccio, caprese, greek salad and a ham-and-melon plate. For soups (zl. 12), there's a choice of tomato, onion or clam chowder. A standard, boring menu we both decided. Eventually Carmine chose the carpaccio (zl. 25). It was a big plate with all the fixings, and the waitress even trotted out the baseball-bat-sized pepper mill to grind the spice over his dish.
"Here, taste this," Carmine said, offering me a forkful, "It's not thin enough. It's too raw meaty tasting."
My caprese (zl. 22) is called "Eyes of the Tiger." The dish comes with seven or eight good hunks of mozzarella, with a pile of sliced tomatoes on the side. The whole thing was covered in an excellent olive oil.
While eating, we were treated to a literal parade of curious onlookers, who were evidently being corralled in front of the restaurant and brought down on a little tour to check out the place. Most just took a silent glance around and left. None stayed to eat. I wondered if they knew something we didn't.
Carmine ordered a beer before the next "round" of the meal. The fight card included all the usual grill-bar choices beef, veal, duck, chicken as well as trout and salmon plates. Again, standard stuff. Carmine chose the T-bone steak (zl. 35), and ordered it medium. That thing looked like something you'd throw to a tiger in the zoo, a massive hunk of meat, laid on top of a mound of rice. Carmine said it was quite good, but his favorite steakhouse remains The Alamo on Aleje Jerozolimskie.
I had a plate of lamb chops (zl. 45), spiced with thyme and served over a plate of couscous with raisins mixed in. It was fine, but nowhere near worth zl. 45.
The last course is called "nok-aut" (knock out), which is dessert. The waitress tried tempting Carmine with a piece of cheesecake, and he almost took the bait, but I was full to bursting and had to get back to the office, so he politely declined the offer.
In the end, we got the Faktura VAT, for zl. 150 ($37.50). No, it's definitely not a lunch place, we agreed upon exiting. The food could hold its own in its weightclass perhaps. But Tiger Pub needs to bulk up on quality to match knock-out prices if this restaurant wants to be a contender.
