 Alex is editor of the In Your Pocket guides in Poland and has written for The Guardian, The Times and The Observer.
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Bolly-what in Gdynia Friday 16th July, 2010
"Fusing the two is like serving Sunday Roast with a bunch of bananas, a lunatic act that should be punished with sticks."
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Have I ever written about Gdynia? I don’t think so, but then it’s easily overlooked thanks to her high profile neighbours. Sure, it gets its day in the sun once a year with the Open’er Festival, but aside from that you get the impression her siblings, Sopot and Gdansk, consider her the third wheel to their little gang. Sopot’s the party animal, and Gdansk the good looker – Gdynia, well, that’s just the spotty sister that looks enviously on.
Personally though I like it; it’s got a real city flavour that the other two lack, as well as about a billion less tourists flapping maps in your face. That’s welcome news, though the real trump card is her restaurants; in particular, a smattering of ethnic eateries that are positively experimental by tri-city standards. Take for instance Pueblo, a fine Mex joint that would do well in the capital. Or the Taj Mahal and Tandoor House, two rival Indians with curry to kill for.
I discovered the latest addition to this culinary map last Saturday, a wooden cabin going under the name Bollywood. Temperatures were crazy, and I was cooking like a Kentucky Fried Drumstick, but that wasn’t stopping me from road-testing a new curry. Big mistake. The menu, presented by a girl trained at Stalag Luft Goebbels, looked like it had been dredged from under a sofa, and should have been warning enough.
On it, for instance, a creation called Butter Chicken Spaghetti. Now Indian and Italian are both noble cuisines, but they certainly don’t work together. Fusing the two is like serving Sunday Roast with a bunch of bananas, a lunatic act that should be punished with sticks. I persevered, however, my bravery rewarded with what might have been kebab meat dumped in a watery porridge. Even the beer made me feel funny. As curries go, this was a disaster, and the sort of meal that made me worried for the morning.
Deflated, defeated, I was just readying to can my affair with Gdynia when along came a sign from the Gods. Piwiarnia it’s called, and it’s basically a sweaty tiny shop filled with x amount of booze; all of it Polish, all of it from obscure little breweries. One false move and I’d have sent half the crates tumbling, so it was with a degree of hesitancy I crept upstairs with my bottle of Zywe. Converted into a sh-odd-y little drinking room, the whole place rescued my trip, and for that alone I’ll raise a glass. Find it on Kilinskiego 9a, don’t bother with Bollywood.
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