Day 9: Avondale/"Polish Village"

So, apparently yesterday was some sort of holiday? I was going to eat dinner in Old Town, but because of this alleged "holiday" my family thought it would be nice if we ate dinner together. I agreed with this sentiment and thought that we should go out for barbecue in Old Town. But, my parents said no because apparently we are in some sort of recession? Bottom line: I did not go out to eat yesterday. Sorry to disappoint.

Today's neighborhood was the Polish Village, also known as "Jackowo," located inside of Avondale. Jackowo is one of Chicago's most vibrant "Polish Patches." The street is covered in Polish restaurants, Polish laundromats, and even Polish dollar stores:

Like many of Chicago's ethnic patches, Jackowo is currently experiencing gentrification, however it has managed to retain enough of its culture to feed me today.

Due to a last-minute cancellation of my plans with Chris Pine, I had no date for lunch today until 10:00 this morning. Luckily, my grandparents found time in between their many doctor's appointments to eat lunch with me at The Red Apple, also known as Czerwone Jabluszko, located at 3121 N. Milwaukee Ave:


In order to get there, I took my favorite bus, the number 8, north until the Milwaukee/Grand stop where I took the Blue Line towards O'Hare, and got off at Belmont. Once at Belmont I walked west for about 6 blocks to reach the Milwaukee/Belmont intersection. Then I turned onto Milwaukee and walked south for half a block until I reached today's restaurant. Sidenote: I lied to a busdriver! When we were waiting at a red light right before the Milwaukee/Grand stop, I saw two entrances to the Blue Line, one on either side of the street. Because I'm kind of an moron, I asked the bus driver, "Which entrance leads to the train heading towards O'Hare?" The bus driver looked at me, smirked, and said, "They both lead to the same place," his voice dripping with disdain. I smirked back at him and said, "Well, I'm from New York, and in New York, the trains on either side of the street head in different directions," with identical disdain. He looked shocked, appologized, and said, "Did you just move here?" and I said "No, I'm going to the University of Chicago next year and I'm just here visiting." Then the light turned green, we pulled through the intersection, and I exited the bus. That man will never mess with people from New York again!

The Red Apple is a buffet-style restaurant that serves massive amounts of food. For $9.49 a lunch, and $9.99 a dinner, you get all the pierogis and schnitzel you can force down your throat. The restaurant itself looks like any buffet-style restaurant, with generic-looking tables and chairs, but a few Polish adornments:


This is actually an enlargement of the coat-of-arms that is pictured on the Polish flag:


The food at the Red Apple was very good. The buffet was huge, filling up one whole room and spilling over into the next room:


Polish food is very interesting because it is a mixture of many different cultures. Since Poland was passed around from country to country throughout much of the last 200 years of history, Polish food tends to contain a lot of German or Russian dishes like schnitzel and borscht.

The first thing you hit in the buffet are salads and fruits, and other icky stuff like that. Some of the foods in this section included fermented roots like shredded cabbage known as sauerkraut:


Then the next section held the meat and potato entrees. Due to the weird heat lamps above the buffet, the pictures that I took look sort of discolored, so most of the pictures posted are courtesy of Google Image Search. *Thank you Google Image Search!*:

The next section held the most delicious stuff, with these delicious apple pancakes, potato pancakes, cheese blintzes, meat pierogis, potato and cheese pierogis... everything was fantastic and super greasy. One of the highlights was the schnitzel:


Schnitzel is typically a German or Austrian dish, although it can also be Polish. Schnitzel is a thin slice of veal coated in breadcrumbs and then fried. Polish schnitzel is very similar to the Austrian schnitzel, which, when it is not served in a buffet, is usually served with potatoes and a lemon slice. This schnitzel was sort of weird because it was very circular, and schnitzel is usually very flat. But it tasted good, so no matter. The best part about eating schnitzel was that I finally understood the part in that song: "Schnitzel with noodles and whiskers on kittens, something and hayballs and something with mittens... la la la something, and poodles with strings..." Real schnitzel looks like this:

When the schnitzel is made with pork instead of veal, it is called kotlet schabowy, or pork cutlet. This was the traditional Polish dish before the German influences kicked in.

Another highlight of my meal were the pierogis. Oh. My. Pierogi. These were fantastic. There were two types, meat-filled and cheese and potato-filled. The cheese and potato-filled ones were so tasty I wanted to cry:


Pierogis are kind of like Chinese potstickers. They have dumpling wrappings on the outside and various types of filling on the inside. There is a restaurant called "Pierogi Place" that I considered going to today that served 15 different types of pierogi! Some of the more delicious-sounding flavors were cherry, sweet cheese, blueberry, and some of the more traditional ones contained spinach, mushrooms, meat, or potatoes. I decided not to go to that restaurant because there did not seem like much variety, but I kind of regret it now because pierogis are so fantastic.

They were not serving borscht today, which I was sad about because I would have loved to taste it:


Borscht is a cold beet soup that is also served in Russia. I have always been slightly afraid of the thought of a cold beet soup, and I was eager to conquer that fear today... I guess that is one reason to go back...

The apple pancakes were another highlight:


These are much denser than typical American pancakes. It is a very thick and heavy dish that is sometimes served with sour cream or applesauce. They usually contain a fruit like apples or peaches, but sometimes they contain cheese. These cheese-filled pancakes are similar to cheese blintzes. The blintzes that we ate today were boiled, but sometimes they are fried:

There was a section of the buffet dedicated to dessert, but only a few of them were traditional Polish desserts. One of the traditional ones is called kolaczki:

These are jam-filled cookies typically served at Christmastime. Another dessert that is only served once a week at The Red Apple is called a ponczki:

Ponczkis are jam- or custard-filled Polish donuts that are heavier than our American donuts. They are usually eaten on Fat Thursday in Poland, which is the last Thursday before Lent. These were not served today at The Red Apple, but, again, it will give me a reason to go back.

It was a very good and inexpensive lunch, and I ate so much that I will most likely not be hungry for dinner, or for breakfast tomorrow. Lunch was about $40 for the three of us, and we had a great time, so it was worth it. Tomorrow I will be eating in Hyde Park, perhaps at Cedar's. However, I am up for suggestions for tomorrow because all I really know in Hyde Park is the Medici and the Subway on 57th street, and the cafeteria at the business school.