When looking for a quick bite this eatery fits the lunch bill
Chance, more than anything else, then, drew me to the hotel lysogory.
"Lunch!" exclaimed a Kielce insider whom I asked for a recommendation. "You must eat at the Patio." When I said I'd been there already, his enthusiasm visibly withered. "Well, then you could try, um, there is ..." "That closed down," his colleague interjected. "Well then, hmm..." Suddenly he remembered that he was invited to a luncheon at the Hotel lysogory and he insisted I accompany him.
The lysogory is conveniently located opposite the train station, in the former Hotel Centralny. New owners have changed the name and have made visible progress sprucing up the place. The restaurant looks brand new, if simple and functional.
The restaurant was nearly empty in mid-afternoon. The luncheon was over. My contact exchanged a few whispered words with the waitress, of which I could only make out "a guest from America." This seemed to take care of things, and we were shown to a table against the back wall.
The menu held no surprises, and none were expected. Polish only, it is your standard Polish hotel menu. Soups sounded good on this cold day, and ran zl. 2 for bullion with maccaroni to zl. 8 for flaki. Zurek was tempting at zl. 4, but I decided on the borscht "with ears," actually little dough dumplings. My companion would have the same.
lysogory's menu also has a full-page listing hot and cold snacks, as well as quite a few desserts, all reasonably priced between zl. 5 and zl. 15. These include standards such as herring in oil (zl. 6) and steak tartar (zl. 11), as well as mussels in tomato sauce (zl. 10), caviar (zl. 11) and shrimp cocktail (zl. 16). Desserts included fruit salad (zl. 5), peach Melba (zl. 8) and compote (zl. 4).
As the eatery is literally just a few paces from the train platform, it would be an ideal place to have a snack and coffee while waiting for a train. The servers and greeters were smiling and welcoming, the interior light and new - you're basically not going to find anything else remotely as nice anywhere near the train station. Being a hotel restaurant, it's also open for breakfast as early as 7 a.m. Breakfast offerings include eggs every which way you choose (zl. 3-zl. 7) and sausages (zl. 6-zl. 8).
Mains are divided into meat, fish and poultry dishes. Meat dishes include my Polish favorite golonka (zl. 8 per 100 grams), which is basically a big hunk of pig, with the skin, roasted golden brown, chewily intact. A small one runs 200 grams, while a man-sized portion needs to weigh in at no less than 500 grams to be respectable. There are also various pork cutlets available (zl. 12-zl. 15), beef "burgundy style" (zl. 15) and wiener schnitzel (zl. 14). Poultry choices run zl. 7-zl. 14, and include chicken fillets with cheese (zl. 14) or with a fried egg (zl. 11). Fish dishes are all priced by weight: trout goes for zl. 10 per 100 grams, carp zl. 12-zl. 17, while frog legs are zl. 24. I decided on the chicken with a fried egg, and so did my companion.
As we waited, the first of many people approached our table to speak with my companion. He seemed to be quite the man about Kielce, and everyone came to seek advice about a project, to pass on or pick up a few words of gossip. It made for rather disjointed table conversation. Luckily my companion had no end of tales to tell - founding schools, ski instructing, engineering projects in Baghdad ...
Our borscht was stuffed full of "ears" and piping hot. Out of habit I saved my dumplings for last. The waitress, seeing a bowl drained of soup but full of "ears," thought I didn't like them and tried to take it away, but I quickly grabbed them back.
The chicken and egg combo was plain hotel fare, but not bad. It came with a side salad of sliced cucumbers in cream. The cucumbers were soggy, not crunchy as I like them.
The bottom line is that lysogory is a decent choice for a lunch in Kielce if you don't have time to go out to Exbud. Lunch for two including two fruit juices cost zl. 40 ($11.59).
"Lunch!" exclaimed a Kielce insider whom I asked for a recommendation. "You must eat at the Patio." When I said I'd been there already, his enthusiasm visibly withered. "Well, then you could try, um, there is ..." "That closed down," his colleague interjected. "Well then, hmm..." Suddenly he remembered that he was invited to a luncheon at the Hotel lysogory and he insisted I accompany him.
The lysogory is conveniently located opposite the train station, in the former Hotel Centralny. New owners have changed the name and have made visible progress sprucing up the place. The restaurant looks brand new, if simple and functional.
The restaurant was nearly empty in mid-afternoon. The luncheon was over. My contact exchanged a few whispered words with the waitress, of which I could only make out "a guest from America." This seemed to take care of things, and we were shown to a table against the back wall.
The menu held no surprises, and none were expected. Polish only, it is your standard Polish hotel menu. Soups sounded good on this cold day, and ran zl. 2 for bullion with maccaroni to zl. 8 for flaki. Zurek was tempting at zl. 4, but I decided on the borscht "with ears," actually little dough dumplings. My companion would have the same.
lysogory's menu also has a full-page listing hot and cold snacks, as well as quite a few desserts, all reasonably priced between zl. 5 and zl. 15. These include standards such as herring in oil (zl. 6) and steak tartar (zl. 11), as well as mussels in tomato sauce (zl. 10), caviar (zl. 11) and shrimp cocktail (zl. 16). Desserts included fruit salad (zl. 5), peach Melba (zl. 8) and compote (zl. 4).
As the eatery is literally just a few paces from the train platform, it would be an ideal place to have a snack and coffee while waiting for a train. The servers and greeters were smiling and welcoming, the interior light and new - you're basically not going to find anything else remotely as nice anywhere near the train station. Being a hotel restaurant, it's also open for breakfast as early as 7 a.m. Breakfast offerings include eggs every which way you choose (zl. 3-zl. 7) and sausages (zl. 6-zl. 8).
Mains are divided into meat, fish and poultry dishes. Meat dishes include my Polish favorite golonka (zl. 8 per 100 grams), which is basically a big hunk of pig, with the skin, roasted golden brown, chewily intact. A small one runs 200 grams, while a man-sized portion needs to weigh in at no less than 500 grams to be respectable. There are also various pork cutlets available (zl. 12-zl. 15), beef "burgundy style" (zl. 15) and wiener schnitzel (zl. 14). Poultry choices run zl. 7-zl. 14, and include chicken fillets with cheese (zl. 14) or with a fried egg (zl. 11). Fish dishes are all priced by weight: trout goes for zl. 10 per 100 grams, carp zl. 12-zl. 17, while frog legs are zl. 24. I decided on the chicken with a fried egg, and so did my companion.
As we waited, the first of many people approached our table to speak with my companion. He seemed to be quite the man about Kielce, and everyone came to seek advice about a project, to pass on or pick up a few words of gossip. It made for rather disjointed table conversation. Luckily my companion had no end of tales to tell - founding schools, ski instructing, engineering projects in Baghdad ...
Our borscht was stuffed full of "ears" and piping hot. Out of habit I saved my dumplings for last. The waitress, seeing a bowl drained of soup but full of "ears," thought I didn't like them and tried to take it away, but I quickly grabbed them back.
The chicken and egg combo was plain hotel fare, but not bad. It came with a side salad of sliced cucumbers in cream. The cucumbers were soggy, not crunchy as I like them.
The bottom line is that lysogory is a decent choice for a lunch in Kielce if you don't have time to go out to Exbud. Lunch for two including two fruit juices cost zl. 40 ($11.59).
