A bar with out of kilter music

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Ralph Bullivant

After lunch in a place called Bad Meat it was difficult to tell if the man who had helped us through our order was congratulating me, or perhaps there was more sorrow in his voice, as he told me that the tin robot into which I had been shovelling my coins by way of a tip was a collection tin for a local dog’s home. All being in Polish it was difficult to tell.

Notwithstanding that confusion we had a sustaining vegetarian lunch helped along with a pint from the bar next door.

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The day had started with a trip to the Panarama of Raclawice, a painting in the round some 15 metres tall and 152 metres long, celebrating a famous Polish victory over the Russians from the 18th century.

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Suitably bucked up with the epic vision of war and death we carried on walking through the back streets of Wroclaw occasionally finding ourselves surrounded by flats of communist grey concrete some of which looked as if they might be about to crumble into the ground.

We walked past a bar from which we could hear some vaguely cool music. There was a model of a crocodile outside holding a balloon. We promised ourselves that we would go back that evening knowing that we wouldn’t and then thought that the bar looked too good to miss out on. So, although the sun was shining and it was warm enough to sit outside, we turned round and went inside. It was suitably dark and dingy but there were coloured reliefs on the ceiling and gold Art Deco light fittings of scantily clad women. There were booths with tattered leather seats, a window of coloured glass and a small bar with heavy iron seats. They were selling a dark heavy Polish beer and playing of kilter music.

It was a happy place to while away an hour or so as the world passed by outside.

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Walking round Wroclaw

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Ralph Bullivant

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The guide book suggested that day’s could be lost walking round the old streets of Wroclaw.

Well we didn’t spend days on it but we tramped through a good mileage of those streets this morning and early afternoon before finishing up for a lunch outside in a restaurant called Konspira, named in supper of the Solidarity movement. The menu contained a potted history of the resistance against communist rule and each dish was named for an aspect of it.

So I ate Wroclaw Konspirator’s Dinner Set – otherwise grilled pork neck with garlic butter served with homemade kopytka and fried cabbage. It was very good particularly when followed by a small cupped glass of plum brandy which brought tears to my eyes it was so potent.

Wroclaw itself is a mixture of the medieval centre which was flattened during the War and has since been rebuilt and then outside of the centre streets of late nineteenth early twentieth century apartment blocks that seemed to have survived the War but are now starting to crumble and fall apart. There has also been some interesting looking graffiti.

Dark beer in Wroclaw.

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Ralph Bullivant

So we have arrived in Wroclaw and after a slightly crazed taxi ride from the airport we are in our hostel room. It transpires that the room is five beds under a six point chandelier (with one bulb blown). The walls are a deep European orange and there is a curled pattern across the ceiling.

Best of all we are two floors up from a bar. Some of us have already taken the opportunity to see it worked. It did.

Earlier the day I had done some homework and bought myself a bottle of dark beer from the new Polish Supermarket down Oxton Road. It seems they are selling something very similar downstairs.

I could find myself liking Wroclaw.

A blue haired girl singing The Smiths

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Ralph Bullivant

It was of course cheering yesterday to put my head round the door of Maray to find most of the rest of the family sat down and ready for a good lunch.

I had just had a ham sandwich and can of Lemon Fanta sat at my desk. I have been eating a lot of ham sandwiches over the last week or so and reckon there is a good months worth of ham to go.

My lunch time was spent scurrying from Eurochange and onto a shop to buy some bags all the time hoping it wasn’t going to rain. At one point fat drops started from the sky and a great black cloud loomed over the back of town and the bombed out church but they stopped as soon as they started.

There were compensations. I put by head into Probe with the intnetion of looking rather than anything else. But they had a copy of Robert Forster’s new album, on proper black vinyl, so I had to have myself that for the weekend.

And then round the corner from Probe there was a blue haired girl with a guitar singing Smiths song. It is strange how the words ‘And if a double-decker bus Crashes in to us To die by your side Is such a heavenly way to die’ heard sung on a crowded street can put a tear in the eye of a grown man.

Back home that evening I decided to cook myself something sweet but feisty.

I picked up some orange flavoured dried cranberries with the thought they might go well with some chicken and chilli.

1 poulet chicken
olive oil
1 red onion thinly sliced in half moons
crushed garlic
orange flavoured cranberries
2 sliced perky red chillies
ground cinnamon
salt & pepper
a glass of white wine

I started by browning the chicken, which had been seasoned with plenty of salt and pepper, in a heavy pot with a lid. I then stirred in the onions and gave them five minutes of so to soften and take on some colour. I then added the garlic and chillies and a teaspoon of cinnamon and gave it five minutes more and then finally the cranberries.

The glass of wine was poured in and once it came up to a bubble the heat was turned down and the lid went on with a layer of tin foil to help keep in the steam.

It was ready after about 40 minutes and I ate it surrounded by just cooked mograbiah.