Gdansk, the land of Beige!

We were never meant to come to Gdansk! Where even is Gdansk you might ask? Gdansk is at the top of Poland. We were supposed to be on our amazing Asian foodie adventure exploring the street foods of Taiwan and Hong Kong but a certain virus stopped that from happening so me and my good friend JB found the cheapest flight out of London and found ourselves in Gdansk in the middle of winter. Always looking on the non beige side of life we decided to turn this into a foodie adventure, instead. A quick google for food blogs and a quick look at #gdansk did not provide us with much inspiration. Maybe Polish food is not on the list of up and coming food trends like we first thought, maybe Instagram is not big in Poland? We didn't have much time for research as it was all a bit last minute so we thought we may have to go off piste at times. For those of you who read my Japan/Korea blog, you will remember the taste of "Fridge". If Korea is "Fridge", then to sum up Polish food in just one word it would be "Beige". Everything is beige, it looks beige, it tastes beige, its served on beige, the service is beige, it's all just a bit beige!

Even the buildings are beige.

I'm not one to complain though at a beige espresso martini.

Our first stop was lunch. I got excited, when I saw on the menu a traditional soup served in a bread bowl. This is what I was talking about! I promptly ordered it and the waiter came back to tell me, they had no bread bowl but I could still have the soup (with bread on the side). He must have seen the disappointment in my face because as it turned out he must have ran to the bakery and fashioned a bowl out of bread for me. Yes, it was hearty and tasty, just a little beige.

JB had the pierogi. You have to have pierogi when in Poland as it is one of their traditional dishes. I was introduced to pierogi years ago by Polish Ana who I worked with. She bought some to work once. I wasn't that impressed then, but they were from the frozen section at Asda, surely the real Mcoy would be better.

However, also very beige and the texture of a slippery sock. They really did try with the basil garnish but we are not in Italy now. A dusting of paprika would have been a better fit to add a bit more colour to the beigeness.

We then felt in need of a sweet treat to cheer ourselves up. In the one blog I had read they mentioned these special donuts. We thought we better sample one to see what the fuss was all about. We got the rose jam one and a cheese one. In theory they looked very nice. But in practice they were just dry and beige. The rose jam could hardly be found let alone tasted. And the cheese one, well Im not really sure what that was about.

Actually once I have enhanced this photo it does look a bit better than it tasted.

That night, we forgot to take a photo of our dinner. It was not that memorable though as I cant even remember what it was.

Food aside, Gdansk is a quaint little place. It is by the water which always makes a town look pretty. We hired some hive electric scooters and whizzed around as best as we could. However cobblestones are not really ideal for scooters.

Day two. Breakfast! We went to PanKejk These were really delicious. Pancakes with peaches and cream cheese. Still quite beige but very tasty. JB's were too beige to publish here as she just opted for maple syrup. At least the peaches added a bit of colour.

Im not going to lie, Just going through my photos now it seemed we had more than three meals on this day. So I'm not going to put the photos of the lunch. They are not that aesthetically pleasing to the eye anyway. We went to one of those Polish milk bars which is like a school dinner canteen. Very cheap so it doesn't really count. We were a bit peckish later in the afternoon so went to a Pierogi place. I think it must have been a chain a little bit like a Mcdonalds for Pierogis. We had to try a few for the purpose of this blog. They were fine, if not a little beige.

Dinner that night was at Mono Kitchen which came up in some of the reviews we had read and seemed like our best option.

This was a confit duck leg. Quite pretty to look at but too many flavours going on and the fennel was so dry and hard I nearly broke a tooth. They made it quite clear that tip was not included. They didn't need to bother though as we weren't going to leave one anyway. If there is one thing I cant stand is when waiters do not scan the room and you're waiting parched as anything trying to get their attention for another drink.

We found another milk bar for our next breakfast. I opted for the beige special. JB had the potato pancakes which resembled 2 beige wet flannels.

Our last night in Gdansk we couldn't face any more beige.We found a very nice roof top bar called Sassy with colourful decor and colourful drinks. The service was even colourful. We opted for a cocktail which had a tuft of purple candy floss in the glass and the waiter poured the champagne over the candy floss dissolving it into a sugary syrup.

Some might call it drinks theatre, others may call it gimmicky. We didn't care we were on the top of the world looking out over the beige below.

If we couldn't have our Asian foodie maxi break in Taiwan and Hong Kong we would do the next best thing and have Ramyen for dinner. There happened to be a food hall thing below and we had our best meal in Poland right here. Colourful, spicy and tasty and definitely not Beige!

All jokes aside I can highly recommend Gdansk as a nice relaxing little place just a hop skip and a jump from London. Everything was easy, if not beige!I can also highly recommend our Air b and b for the bargain price of £81 for 3 nights!