I was looking at an apartment near McGolrick Park the other day and decided that if I were to live in Greenpoint, I would need to come to terms with Polish food. So of course I set about haphazardly choosing a Polish restaurant on Nassau Avenue.
Now I must note that I'm not Polish, that I have no complicated history with Polish cuisine. Neither of my grandmothers made me potato pancakes which forever shaped my preferences as regards the dish. To put it another way: I don't know shit about Polish food. Sure, I have the same vague ideas as anyone (lots of meat, potatoes, and cabbage), but that's about it. I stumbled across and into Basia between Diamond & Jewel St. just before noon. There were posters on the door promoting Polish dance parties in and around the city.
The restaurant itself is a plain cafeteria, a flatscreen television blaring Polish satellite news into a large, shadowy box containing 12 or so modest wooden tables. A counter wraps around one corner of the room, and drink coolers hum nondescriptly in a little nook. There was a pretty young lady at the counter, and one can see through a window in the wall into the kitchen where two oldish ladies were preparing lunch.
"For here or to go?" asked the young lady. For here, of course. Menu items are spelled out in white stickers on an unnatural looking paneled wooden board above the counter. The names of dishes are written in Polish, with a vague description below each one in English.
I was on the spot and ordered potato pancakes before really sizing up the menu. The waitress turned and briskly relayed my order in Polish to the cooks. But then I realized that I wanted something more. I asked the young lady what I should have with my potato pancakes, and she looked at me quizically. "I don't know?"
I suppose that I was that annoying customer who comes in and is all, what's good here? In fact I was simply hoping for a small side of vegetables (really, though: vegetables? in Polish food?), but she did not seem to understand what I was asking.
At this point I began to look at the right half of the menu board and realized that I had ordered prematurely. The "Entrees" section of the board revealed numerous meaty delights (all varieties of pork, really, in addition to various schnitzels, some seafood, etc.), and I regretted my selection of placki kartoflane from the board's "Blintzes" subdivision. Still, the two women in the kitchen had already set about making my pancakes, and I couldn't just ask them to stop.
I took a different tack: "Okay, so if I get the pancakes and the gulasch, will that be too much?" Her face contorted as she strove to answer my likely-stupid question as judiciously as possible. After a pause: "This would be too much."
Oh-kayyy...umm...
Then, unexpectedly, the young lady came to my rescue. "Maybe you get the Hungarian pancakes. This is the potato pancakes with the pork stew."
"Yes, thank you! Excellent! I'll do it."
"Anything to drink?" (I checked my watch, verifying that it was, alas, too early for a beer.)
"Uhh...just some water."
"Okay?" (She gestured toward the drink coolers.)
I tipped her and sat down at one of the long, plain tables. There were some fake tulips adorning one end. I started reading, variably trying to decipher Polish news items on the television. Workers started to filter in for their lunch. I glanced surreptitiously at the counter, to check on the status of both my food and the cute counter lady. She was nowhere to be found, but I noticed a portrait of John Paul II hanging over the counter.
Business in Basia (excepting, of course, dealings with outsiders such as myself) is conducted entirely in Polish. Customers order and then retrieve their own bread, silverware, and napkins from a bin near the counter. After I noticed everyone else doing this, I followed suit.
Some of the other customers' dishes came out before mine: soup, schnitzel. The waitress called each customer by name when his dish was ready, and each in turn went up to the counter to get his lunch. She brought mine out on a tray and told me warmly to enjoy.
The plate contained two massively oblong potato pancakes sandwiching really thick pork gulasch. The top pancake was garnished with a dollop of sour cream and a tomato wedge. The pancakes were browned to perfection and glistened with a greasy sheen.
To the side of the plate were three piles, made up, respectively, of 1) homemade, slightly sweet sauerkraut, 2) carrot salad (aside: what is carrot salad, really, but shredded carrots? If this is the case, why does it magically become a salad when you shred the carrots?), and 3) a dill salad of cucumbers, green cabbage, and green onion.
The gulasch was a thick and savory stew of delicious, slow-cooked pork, some carrots, peas, and corn. The potato pancakes were different from latkes or German Reibekuchen, in size and, more significantly, texture. Basia's placki (pronounced plahts-kee, I think) were deliciously crispy on the outside, but they seemed to be made of very, very finely grated potatoes, almost mashed. There wasn't the familiar latke texture of coarsely grated potato and onion to them.
I plodded through my meal, enjoying it thoroughly, and at some point a news bit about the Obamas' new dog came on Polish television. I kind of grinned stupidly at the room, all, "Shucks, I know what they're talkin' about!!!" No one was paying any attention to me, though. Just watchin' Bo frolick on Polish satellite news.
Everything was fantastic, and I left feeling really full. It was a struggle to finish the dish, but only because the portion was huge. The Calorie-to-Dollar Ratio would assuredly smile upon my meal at Basia. At $10.25, it offered a lot of bang for one's buck. I will definitely return. My sense of Polish food as comfort food seems justified after my visit to Basia, and I'll be back next time I'm craving some hearty meat-n-potatoes-type stuff. Also, I'm kind of curious to see what the evening scene is like.
Basia/Basia's Place
167 Nassau Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222
718-383-0276
I made this!
6 days ago