Gospoda Polska

In 1973 the illusion that Eng-er-land was a footballing super power still held sway. Of course they had won the World Cup in 1966 and reached the quarter finals in 1970 after an epic match with Brazil. And the exit from that 1970 tournament was surely a fluke, losing to West Germany after going two-nil up. That October night the prevailing mood inside Wem-ber-lee was that the match was a foregone conclusion. Even before kick-off the crowd were licking their lips in anticipation of their heroes despatching a motley shower of Poles. Hadn’t Brian Clough even dubbed their keeper, Tomaszewski, “a clown”?

Of course, like all Eng-er-land’s footballing adventures since 1966 it ended in tears. The keeper stigmatized as only fit to sport a red nose and pantaloons defied the home team with a series of thrilling acrobatic saves. It ended 1-1, Poland going through to the finals at the home side’s expense. I wasn’t that bothered. In fact I had spent most of the second half chanting “Polska, gola” in unison with a bunch of amiable folk from Poznan and Warsaw who, seated in the row behind, had fuelled us liberally with neat Wodka, accompanied by chunks of that fat smoked sausage Poles know as ‘wiejska’; it beat every football ground pie I’ve ever tasted hands down. This was my first experience of Polish food and I’ve been hooked on this ‘farmer’s lunch’ sausage ever since.
Last week, on my way to meet the pre-Raphaelite Beggar Maid for a dinner date, I popped into the Polish deli and acquired a hoop of wiejska about the size of a small toilet seat, enough to do my lunchtime sambos for a fortnight. It was too big to fit in the capacious pocket of my wax jacket so I arrived in Nealons pub in Capel Street clutching it to my breast. People stared but The Maid, who gets excited by food-natured objects, seemed well impressed.
We were dining at Gospoda Polska across the road, a restaurant that achieved temporary notoriety owing to a policy (now abandoned) of getting staff to work a free shift for trial purposes and then not employing them, a cute ploy others might well be tempted to adopt. Imagine, all a restaurant proprietor needs is 250 or so mugs and he’s lowered his overheads by thirty grand a year!
The food is, you’ve guessed, Polish. The menu revealed rank upon rank of hearty dishes, entirely in tune with the cold, soggy August night; there were casseroles and dumplings aplenty. The Beggar Maid took the borscht, spicy beetroot soup, with what was described in the translated version of the menu as a ‘vegetable goulash tortilla’. A slight misnomer, this turned out to be two enormous deep-fried spring roll things, filled with paprika-spiced veggies. The soup was very tasty, once you got used to the thin consommé-like texture. I ordered ‘bigos’ simply because I recognised the name as a traditional Polish dish. ‘Bigos’ was presented as spicy meatballs, speckled with tasty black mushrooms, under a bedspread of sauerkraut, another seasonal warmer.
The winelist was dire; padded out with big brand bog standard items , it needs work. We picked a La Chasse du Pape Côtes du Rhône from Gabriel Meffre, wickedly expensive at 34, simply for want of better. It had that slight Brasso taint I remembered from past acquaintance. We should of course have stuck with the excellent Polish beers.
The Maid nabbed the roulade of beef, excellent, stuffed with bacon, cucumber and onion, served with ‘sour cabbage’ and pickled dills, accompanied by two big dollops of mashed potatoes. There was no attempt to style the food, quite refreshing these days. I love duck but I get fairly pissed off by seeing neat little circles of pink tit arranged in a pretty fan shape; no danger of that here, I was given a half duck of impressive size, skin roasted crisp, interior still soft. It came on a bed of cooked dessert apples and dried, I think, apricots and was sympathetically partnered by a strawberry and cranberry sauce which cut through the fat a treat. Other garnishes included quite a substantial side salad with flavoursome strawberries hiding amid the greens and ‘potatoes dufinee’ which I’d guessed to be ‘pommes Dauphine’, croquettes made by mixing potato purée with choux pastry before deep frying. What I got was chips! The duck was as enjoyable a main course as I’ve had for long enough and I’d like to make this point: if this plateful had been tastefully arranged by a fine dining chef it would have received rave reviews, albeit you’d have got half the quantity at what, 28-35? As it was, it cost 19.50 including accompaniments.
To conclude, we just about managed a slice of really good baked cheesecake and a tolerable apple pie. The espresso wasn’t bad either, though it didn’t wipe away the memory of the execrable one I’d had the day before at Manchester airport. Gospoda Polska was far from full that Tuesday night. Is it because we’ve now got notions and we turn our noses up at simple, hearty fare? Probably. If so, shame on us because, as autumn approaches, The Beggar Maid and I reckon this restaurant deserves to be jammed; happy eaters chomping away on tasty food, fortifying themselves against the inevitable gales and monsoons.

The damage: 99 for 2 x 3 courses and coffee, 1 bottle wine
Ambience **1/2
Quality ****
Service ***1/2
Value ****
Overall ***1/2
Gospoda Polska, Capel Street, Dublin 1 tel: 01 874 9394