Meditating on lunch
A no-meat, no-smoking restaurant with lots of teas. How not fun is that? I decided to try Sadhu Cafe anyway. Open since February and tucked into a former bomb shelter in Warsaw's Podwale neighborhood, the restaurant is clearly aiming for a transcendental appeal and heavy traffic from the yoga school next door. A sadhu is, after all, a Hindu ascetic or holy man, often one who travels from place to place begging (thanks to Webster's New World College Dictionary for the definition). Why in the world would someone name a restaurant after a skinny man who often covers himself in ashes? Spiritual asceticism and dining out mix like chocolate and baked beans.
The atmosphere at Sadhu Cafe is certainly not mainstream, and for a mainstream person like me it may be a little off. But this cafe at least pulls together the dissonant culinary and cultural strains in a taste bud-friendly way. Part of the way out is by not being too ascetic. Once you find it, the restaurant's unprepossessing entrance leads down a long set of stairs and into a pleasant enough interior, sort of like a ranch house with a Zen atmosphere - warm lighting, a lot of wood, benches and "alternative" music. (Warning: If you are annoyed by folky, jazzy alt-type music - or folky, jazzy alt-type people - don't go here.) For a recent visit, my colleague Greg and I sat in the cafe's loft - up a set of stairs and along a wall - under a photo of an anonymous ascetic fellow, very thin and with a long white beard. The picture made me feel a little bad about ordering a lot of food. But not too bad.
And the atmosphere is relaxing - so much so that we almost didn't mind the very measured pace at which the food came out of the kitchen. This isn't a place to go if you are in a hurry. Along with the interior, the (Polish-only) menu is not particularly austere. It's absolutely not vegan - it has fish dishes and lots of dairy on the menu. But it is free of poultry and red meats; the emphasis is on salads, veggies and seafood dishes, and perhaps the longest selection of teas I've ever seen.
For lunch last week, Greg started off with chłodnik pomidorowy, a cold tomato soup generously doused with garlic. It was simple and tasty. I opted for pierożki a la India, little fried dumplings stuffed with peas, chick peas, carrot and an assortment of nicely spiced vegetables to give it a vaguely Indian flavor. Greg added a sałatka rzymska (Roman salad) to his opening round. The bowl was full of rucola with mozzarella cheese, croutons and avocado toppings and a light mustard dressing. For a main course, I went with hokus pokus, a Latin-derived name for a dish with short towers of eggplant, tomato and zucchini topped with cheese and then baked. It was a fine little plate of food - a straightforward presentation that allowed the individual flavors of the vegetables to create a pleasant medley. But the name made me wonder if the chef slipped some kiełbasa into the ingredients - hocus pocus usually involves trickery or deception. I didn't see or taste any, though, and quickly finished off the plate.
Greg tried the dwa ksiźżyce (two moons), two big round pieces of a subtly flavored, firm-textured cheese baked and topped with a bit of sun-dried tomato and with a little pot of sun-dried tomatoes and capers, and a bit of rucola on the side. He was pleased with the choice and made short work of the entree. As the food seemed healthy and the portions were not large, we decided that a couple of desserts would be OK. I had to try the cafe's namesake dish, the Sadhu sweet, a semolina-based concoction spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. It was not so sweet (well, maybe for a sadhu it would be sweet) but it was a pleasant ending to the meal. Greg went for the lodowy wiatraczek (ice cream fan), sort of a vanilla ice cream lasagna sprinkled with cinnamon. Like everything we tried, it was uncomplicated and the flavors worked well. A several-course lunch for two came to zł. 139 ($34.75).
On the menu: Chłodnik pomidorowy zł. 9 Pierożki a la India zł. 12 Sałata rzymska zł. 19 Dwa ksiźżyce zł. 24 Hokus pokus zł. 27 Sadhu sweet zł. 12 Lodowy wiatraczek zł. 12 Tea zł. 9
