Monday, October 18, 2010

Krakow (Day 2 Part 2) - Treats to our ears and tongues

One of the things my hubby enjoys is to go to organ concerts. Luckily enough, we found the exact one we wanted to listen to at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral that day. The church is the first Baroque Jesuit church in Krakow and is small compared to St. Mary's or Wawel Cathedral of course, but inside it is dazzling with lots of golden decor. It is said that the Jesuits spent so much money on the facade and the sculptures (there are stone statues of the 12 Apostles on the fence) that they ran out of money to finish the rest of the building. True enough, behind the Baroque facade, you see an ordinary brick church.


The organ concert was just great. Maybe it was the combination of the size of organ and church. The sound felt just right to me. The program contained four of Bach's pieces, and four other songs.

Totally satisfied with an hour of beautiful organ concert, we walked through a narrower street which had a row of cute cafes and restaurants. In fact, later that night we decided to stop by after dinner at one of the cafes we had seen to have a coffee and a hot wine, which I really dug!

It was the last night in Krakow, so we decided to go to a fancier restaurant called miód malina, which has been in Michelin Guide since 2008. The restaurant is located pretty close to the main market square. It is rather hard to see from the street, as it is inside a small arcade.

The interior reminded me of a restaurant we went in Provence, France. It was not "fancy" in a modern sense, but it had lots of charm. The walls were painted yellow and rosy red, the wooden tables covered with rosy red tablecloths topped with rosy pillar candles and rosy red flowers. 

We started out with Polish aperitifs; Mandarin Sobieski for my hubby and Cranberry Sobieski for myserf. Sobieski is a Polish voka made from rye, and it was named after Jan III Sobieski, a 17th century Polish king.  It was too strong for me, but I enjoyed a couple of sips in honor of being in Poland.

For appetizers, we ordered toast with ricotta and herring with onions in olive oil.  I was flabbergasted by the serving portion, as they looked like they themselves could be main dishes. We always share everything, and we did the same that night, too. The herring was more like my kind of dish, but it was a bit chewy. Hubby satisfied his daily cheese cravings with toast with ricotta.  For main dishes, we ordered bigos and grilled veal with mushrooms. Bigos is a traditional Polish stew of cabbage and meat. It was a bit too salty for me. Grilled veal with mushrooms turned out to be something completely different from what I imagined. It was more like a thick creamy stew with LOTS of mushrooms and veal meat (I guess the veal meat was grilled first). I am typically not a big fan of creamy stuff, but I enjoyed the mushrooms pretty much.

The night ended with a glass of red hot wine (sweet with citrus flavor with a touch of cinamon), which I loved very much.  I finally had a good night sleep that night :-)

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