Bigos, Edinburgh - Restaurants in Edinburgh | s1play.com

In Pole position

Review published on 14/06/2007 © Sunday Herald

Thanks to the availability of Polish plumbers, decorators, brickies and joiners, the prospect of doing up houses has become, if not joyous, at least less daunting. With Poles, there is no chasing up the builders when they mysteriously disappear with only 85 per cent of the job done. This is a nationality that keeps appointments, honours its estimates and takes a pride in its craftsmanship.

Polish food though? That's a different matter. Poland doesn't have a great reputation for its cuisine, but then neither does Scotland, and we all know that if you know where to look you can eat well in our native land. Never having been in Poland, I was inclined to think its cuisine was unfairly maligned. I imagined it being a bit like Hungarian or Czech food, both of which I like, although there's no denying they are stick-to-the-rib cuisines. Then a friend put me right, insisting Polish food was most unappetising. And she seemed to know what she was talking about. "Trust me, " she said. "I've had two Polish boyfriends." .

In the interests of research, I've made a point of looking around the new Polish food shops that are popping up. I'm grateful for the nearby Polish bakery, which serves proper crusty sourdough bread at an extraordinarily reasonable price, showing up the offerings of our indigenous chains.

But down at the Polish deli, I can't find much I want to buy. I had this romantic image of Poland as a land untouched by junk food with lots of peasant farms and home cooks. But in reality, the deli shelves are stacked with convenience foods containing an armoury of additives. I wonder about the provenance of all those preternaturally pink sausages, too, and there's a limit to how much preserved or pickled food I want to eat, given that we aren't living in a famine-stricken Siberian winter.

I can't say that Bigos, the Polish restaurant in Edinburgh's Leith Walk, has converted me either. It's a cosy place, in a kitsch, cuckoo-clock sort of way, but I found the food challenging on the stomach.

The main problem, apart from its solidity, was the surprising sweetness of most of the savoury dishes. Is this just Bigos, or Polish food in general? I haven't a clue but it really put me off. My clear beetroot soup was as sweet as many a dessert and not improved by having "dumplings" in it which tasted more like Italian ravioli filled with some claggy green substance.

A tender goulash served on a potato pancake was much better, although the pancake was on the tough side. Neither was improved by a red cabbage salad, once again, extremely sweet.

The most likeable savoury dish was bigos, a stew with sauerkraut, smoked sausage, pork and mushrooms, smoky with paprika.

The golabki – stuffed cabbage leaves with a tomato sauce – can scarcely have been a glowing example of its type. The leaves were tough, the beef and rice stuffing let down by mushy rice, and the sauce was cloyingly sweet.

Altogether better was the cottage cheese and potato filling in the half moon-shaped pierogi z serem, although the dumpling casing was seriously stodgy. The pierogi were anointed with onions sweated in butter, but as boiled dumplings go, I couldn't help thinking the Chinese or Italians do it better. I was itching to add a grating of parmesan or a splash of soy sauce.

My theory about Poles' fondness for labour-saving ingredients was strengthened by the cheesecake, described as home-made. It was set on sponge fingers, a mousse-like job with a strawberry flavour that didn't ring true. Thank heavens for the sticky toffee pudding (I never thought I'd say it!), albeit hardly a Polish delicacy.

So I'm still puzzled. Is Polish cuisine a no-hoper, or is Bigos just not a great ambassador for its delights? Cheap, plentiful and filling, yes. But surely there must be more to it?

© Sunday Herald