Polonia Sausage House - Review for Polish Poppy Seed Bread

Restaurant: Polonia Sausage House - Review for Polish Poppy Seed Bread

Cuisine: Bakery/Dessert/Cafe

Last visited: February 22, 2010
Area: Vancouver, BC (Hastings-Sunrise)

2434 Hastings Street East
Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Polish Poppy Seed bread: 6

Service: 6

Ambiance: ? It's a grocery store/deli/bakery

Overall: n/a

Additional comments:

• Owned by Polish family
• Frequented by Polish people
• Authentic
• Homemade sausages
• Popular for sausages
• Polish grocery store/deli/bakery
• Baked goods imported fresh daily from nearby bakery
• Frozen perogies available
• Bakery (smaller selection)
• Mostly cheesecakes

**Recommendation: Polish Poppy Seed Bread

This review is only based on the Polish Poppy Seed Bread.

Another random find! I had finished eating at Le Do Vietnamese Restaurant down the street and i was craving some dessert...surprise surprise huh? =p Anyways I started walked up the street and noticed 4 bakeries just one block. I decided to pop into Polonia Sausage House....I don't even kno9w why because they don't advertised being a bakery. Luckily I walked in though because at the back of the store they sell baked goods. There's only a few of each item and the selection is limited. the baked good are actually all made fresh daily...but off site. They bring them in from an Eastern European bakery further down the street...I'm not sure which one though.

Most of the baked goods are different kinds of cheesecakes or pastries with cream. They looked ok, but I'm not a huge fan of cheesecakes so I opted for something I am a BIG fan of...the poppy seed bread! I was introduced to this from my Ukrainian friend and there's lots of interpretations of it, however this is one of the best I've ever had.

The owner was super nice and she told me they have limited selection because they throw away anything that doesn't get sold that day...and I believe her. most bakeries should operate like this I think - I hope they eat them instead of throw them away though...such a waste of good food otherwise.

I want to go back for more poppy seed bread and I also want to try their sausages...they looked good! Very authentic...everyone in there was speaking Polish - owner and customers...I was excited that I had found an authentic Polish place...even if it is a grocery store.

On the table:

**Polish Poppy Seed Bread 6/6

• Half $4.98 Whole loaf $9.98
• The owner was super nice. She charged me $4.30 for half a loaf because it was slightly smaller than half a loaf. Really cute.

• It's a pretty substantial loaf although I finished it in 2 sittings. I bought half a loaf.
  
• I loved this bread! It's half bread and half pastry so I can't really call it a dessert. Would you consider a croissant a dessert? Or a danish? It's almost like that kind of thing.
• This is baked off site at the bakery down the street. YUMMY!

• It's loaded with a poppy seed! The poppy seed is almost like a paste and there's also some candied lemon peel, raisins, and walnuts in it. I loved it! I could have used more raisins and walnuts though...there were so few that I wasn't sure if they had gotten in there by accident....but enough to know that they were intended.

• There's a very strong fresh lemon taste and scent. The candied lemon pieces were actually quite big, but very good! I thought I wouldn't like it either, but it enhanced all the flavours.

• The topping of the bread is almost like a streusel crumb topping. There’s a little bit of icing and a little bit of brown sugar crumb topping. It's delicious.
• The bread part is egg bread. It's dense and crumbly and almost like a lemon loaf cake but not as sweet and a bit drier.
• It dries out quickly if it's not wrapped up, but it's excellent when it's fresh or even slightly warmed up.
• It's not too sweet, but still dessert like. The Poppy Seed Square at Breka Bakery was much more of a dessert. I could this one at any anytime of day...it's delicious.