Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Arrival in Gdansk

August 2nd...arrival in Gdansk....

Magic has returned to my life. When I last saw Gdansk it was still largely in ruins...and that was I believe in the early 70s...well, the Poles have done an astonishing job. They are said to be the finest RESTORERS in the world...just look at what they did in Warsaw...and in moving Abu Simbel...but what is here will take anyones' breath away: the old Hanseatic angles, the lavish red brick (the largest red brick building on earth is the St Marys here), the odd wonderful colors....it is quite breathtaking...and I haven't really had time yet to prowl.

My little Podewils Hotel is a find...located right on the old Marina (with lots of pretty yachts and schooners from around the world) overlooking the skyline of Hanseatic facades across the narrow river....my room is sort of chintz with a big portrait of someone's gt gt grandfather and huge furniture which is vaguely Biedermeier....the staff falls all over itself...sensational malaprop after malaprop in English..."your boat tomorrow goes from here is leaves. Understand?" all with a huge smile. "Yes your laundry can be done for clothes must be closed."

Dinner in a few minutes and that will be interesting...hope that they have something Polish. I remember a famous dinner with Tina with friends in Warsaw: it consisted of a few slices of smoked salmon and gallons of Wyborowa....and I remember Tina Poe sitting at the Bristol Hotel the next morning swearing that we were indeed having an earthquake...hmmmm.....The elan is all here, the lovely Polish wryness...but add to that a new outlook: my GOD a huge IKEA store is across the street from the tidy little Lech Walesa Airport.

I am trying to figure out Polish diacritical marks...how LODZ can be WOODGE...how Walesa can be valennsah...so far I have not prevailed...the name of a nearby Gdansk suburb defeats me: wreszcz with a diacritical mark on the e to created an "n" sound...hmmmmm again...

off to dinner...

Now a report on dinner....

Well, it turns out that Podewils is famous in N Europe for its kitchen....some Parisian food writer said that there were "two great restaurants east of Liege"...one is Stikalai in Vilnius which I know well and the other is Podewils. Here is dinner:

5 breads are brought with an "amusement" which turns out to be a perfect little quenelle of Marsurian pike (The Masuria area of former E Prussia is just SE of here and is much like Minnesota in the lake dept)....three butters...one with dill, one with garlic, one with beetroot....the breads ethereal...

I order the Polish soup...not a borscht but rather a very intense veal stock with wild mushrooms and bits of smoked ham. Then the pork with boletus. I ask what in the hell a boletus is. I get the same answer Elisabeth Spiola gives when asked "what is tarhanya?" Elisabeth's answer: "Tarhanya IST tarhanya!". Well, Boletus is a local cepe and unlike some which are greasy and limp this one is huge and assertive and takes of the wild. The pork is a thin skirt steak which has been marinated in vodka and some kind of berries known only to Balts....and it is served with fresh white asparagus and pommes anna (ala Antoine's in their glory days)....

Dessert is another mysterious northern berry in a custard flan....with coffee and a local liqueur made of yet another berry. The whole dinner quite green in the current parlance...and sensational. It also ain't cheap...with a glass of Wyborowa and a glass of a mid priced Cabernet from the Cote du Rhone dinner tops $100 minus tip - barely. Will dine here ONCE more on the trip....this time to try his idea of the "fusion of Japan, Provence and Vienna".....(sounds like our buddy Micheal Coudenhove Kalergi whose grandfather was the emperor of Japan's brother...and who knows lives in Tokyo).

Fred is amused...Fred is happy.....Fred is drunk but reeling instead from calories...my fellow diners were from Hamburg, Neuilly sur Seine, Warsaw and Vienna and they were a trencherman lot...and, dear friends, Poland is not quite what you think.

- FRED

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