Borsch i Vodka

Recently the Polish Club in O'Connor decided that its future did not lie with problem gamblers. So, breaking with standard club practice, it cleaned out the pokies and turned the place over to a restaurant serving Polish cuisine - Borsch i Vodka.

The exterior of the Club building housing the restaurant itself is, to at least one pair of our untrained eyes, quite attractive - typical Canberra 70s brutalism-meets-Frank Lloyd Wright, and opened by Pope John Paul II before he was Pope John Paul II. Upon entering, you are presented with a view straight into the kitchen, with the back-of-house staff looking believably Polish. The dining room itself is off to one side, and feels appropriately enough, perhaps how you might imagine a 1970s-80s Polish restaurant open to people with hard currency might look like.

The Always Hungrys have been to the Club three times in the past few months. Once on our own, once with a couple of friends, and once on a Saturday afternoon when after lunch across the road we chanced upon markets in the main hall selling fresh pork products, sausages, and canned and sachet goods imported direct from Gdansk or wherever.

The food at the restaurant proper has generally been excellent and reasonably priced ($15-20 mains). Just keep away from the deserts - which on both occasions were not that flash. Otherwise, as you would hope, the borsch was delicious (and bright pink), as were the cheese pierogi (dumplings), meat pierogi, and cabbage rolls. These, of course, were well accompanied by freshly pickled, but not-too-sauer, sauerkraut.

Funnily enough, we haven't actually had vodka there, but the various Polish beers we have tried from the bar were also tasty. With a few families, and far fewer young APS-types and graduate accountants, All Bar Nun it is not, the merits of which or otherwise will not be discussed here. However, if you are looking for something different, we would definitely recommend it.