A Vegetarian in Krakow

On my first trip to Krakow, which was only 5 nights, I ate a lot of pierogies, cheese, and the occasional potato pancake. All good, but very, very heavy.

This trip, (14 days of restaurant meals) I was prepared. Although Poland has the reputation as being a meat and potatoes place, Krakow is a university town, and university students everywhere are renowned for their liberal views, which often means many vegetarians. No problem, I thought.

So, armed with my Best of Krakow guidebook, published by the very vegetarian friendly Lonely Planet, I started scouting out the vegetarian options. My second night here, I found Bar Vega, which was promisingly sub-titled Wegatarianski.

It looked promising. All vegetarian and vegan dishes. I ordered a vegetable with tomato sauce casserole (that was the English translation), which although somewhat tasty, was made with frozen peas, corns and carrots.

Have I already complained about the lack of green salad? Bar Vega had nine kinds of salad (7 of which I am sure were made with cabbage - I am not a fan of cabbage), but not a speck of lettuce to be seen!

Still, I was hopeful. After all, it was a vegetarian restaurant in the land of meat and potatoes, and it wasn't the only one listed in the book.

Lunch however, was a different story. My office in Krakow is in an industrial area. The building I am in has a small cafeteria-style restaraunt. Pierogies and potato pancakes are the only vegetarian options. So after two days, my team, who have tried very hard to find me something to eat, took me to another small restaurant. Again, pierogies were the main vegetarian option, but not able to stomach another pierogie meal, I tried the only other vegetarian dish - rice with apples. When it arrived it resembled a huge square of cake, but was made of rice. On top was some sort of sweet cream. The apple filling tasted like apple pie. I guess it tasted okay, but it was very, very odd. I ended up eating about a quarter of it, and getting someone to order me a side dish of mashed potatoes.

The next day I asked my team if there was somewhere I could get a sandwich. Unfortunately for me, sandwiches aren't a popular lunch option. However, this started them thinking. Apparently, you can get sandwiches early in the morning at the cafeteria. And that reminded them that you can also purchase salads from the "salad lady" every morning at 10:30 am.

So the next day, we all put an entry in our calendars for 10:25, and then set off in search of the salad lady. This took us to the fourth floor elevator lobby, where several other people were already waiting. At exactly 10:30 am, the elevator opened, and a large man (salad man?) appeared carrying a huge cooler bag. He dropped the bag on the floor, and everyone waiting crouched down on the floor and started going through the bag. When they found the salad they wanted, they paid him 5 zl and he gave them a large roll and plastic cutlery.

Of course, this being Poland, all of the salads had meat in them.