Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat pierogi
Dumplings filled with potato and curd cheese (ruskie), meat, cabbage with mushrooms, or fruit. Boiled, or pan-fried after boiling — the second is better and has to be asked for.
Ask for them okraszone, topped with fried onion and crackling. Ruskie, despite the name, are not Russian: the word refers to the Ruthenian lands.
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Try żurek
A sour soup made on rye starter with white sausage, boiled egg and marjoram, often served in a hollowed-out loaf. The sourness is soft and lactic rather than vinegary.
The zakwas starter is rye flour and water left for several days. Its relative is biały barszcz, the same idea on wheat starter and milder.
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Try bigos
Fermented and fresh cabbage stewed for hours with several meats, sausage, prunes and mushrooms. The longer it sits and the more often it is reheated, the better it gets.
A proper bigos is dark and almost dry. Autumn and winter food; it is served in summer, but that is out of season.
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Eat kotlet schabowy
A plate-sized breaded pork chop with boiled potatoes and mizeria, a cucumber and sour cream salad. The Sunday lunch and the milk bar's headline dish.
Mizeria is the mandatory companion: its acidity cuts the fried breading. The chop is crumbed rather than simply floured.
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Have lunch in a milk bar
A subsidised canteen with the menu on a board, a serving hatch and prices half of any café. You order at the till, collect at the window and clear your own tray.
They run at lunch and often close by five or six. Not all take cards, so small cash is useful.
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Try gołąbki
Cabbage rolls of fresh cabbage with meat and rice under a tomato or mushroom sauce. Home food that costs very little in a milk bar.
Unlike the Hungarian version, the cabbage here is fresh rather than fermented. A meat-free version with mushroom and grain appears during fasts.
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Try zrazy zawijane
Thin beef rolls filled with pickle, bacon and mustard, braised in a dark sauce. Served with buckwheat, which is a classic Polish pairing rather than an experiment.
The buckwheat is toasted and served loose. The sauce is mopped up with bread rather than left.
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Try pyzy
Large potato dumplings with a meat filling, served with crackling and fried onion. A Warsaw street classic, sold to take away in jars.
Kiosks serve them in a glass jar, which is the local presentation. The dough mixes raw and boiled potato, hence the density.
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Drink barszcz from a cup
A clear beetroot broth without meat or vegetables, sour and concentrated, drunk from a cup. With uszka, tiny mushroom dumplings, it is the Christmas Eve dish.
This is not the Ukrainian borscht: no cabbage, no potato, no fried base. It is drunk hot, often as an opener before the main course.
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Try smalec with bread
Rendered pork fat with crackling, onion and marjoram, spread on rye bread with a salted cucumber. A free or near-free snack in old beer halls.
The cucumber is essential and is what makes the fat edible in quantity. It goes with beer and infusions rather than wine.
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Eat pączki Desserts and pastries
Plump doughnuts filled with rose jam and glazed with candied peel. Eaten all year, but on Fat Thursday before Lent the queues run around the block.
The classic filling is rose jam rather than raspberry or chocolate. A good one has a pale ring around its equator, which means it fried correctly.
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Try sernik Desserts and pastries
A dense cheesecake made with twaróg curd rather than cream cheese, which is why it is grainier and less sweet. It comes baked, usually on a shortcrust base.
The Kraków version with a pastry lattice on top is the most recognisable. Its neighbours in the case are szarlotka and poppy seed makowiec.
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Try kremówka Desserts and pastries
Two sheets of puff pastry with a thick layer of custard between them, dusted with icing sugar. The Wadowice version is famous across the country.
Eating it neatly is impossible, and everyone accepts that. The custard should be firm rather than runny.
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Drink kompot Non-alcoholic drinks
A lightly sweetened brew of dried or fresh fruit, served with lunch in canteens and at home. In a milk bar it comes in a glass with the set meal.
It is served cold or at room temperature rather than hot. In winter it is made from dried fruit, in summer from cherries and currants.
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Try nalewka Local alcohol
Home infusions on cherry, sloe, quince, walnut or honey: sweet, thick and strong. Old bars make their own and serve them in small glasses.
Cherry wiśniówka is the most common and the safest entry point. An infusion comes after the meal rather than instead of it.
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Try Żubrówka with apple juice Local alcohol
Vodka infused with bison grass from the Białowieża forest, with a hay-and-vanilla note. The classic local mix is with apple juice, and it is called szarlotka.
A blade of grass in the bottle marks the real thing rather than a flavoured version. It is drunk chilled, and the cocktail comes over ice.
