Editor Pick
Pooey Spring Rolls, no Thanks!
- January 20, 2009
- Rated 1 of 5 by
dangaroo from Warsaw, Poland
Sapaya is a relatively new chain of Asian restaurants in Warsaw, when one opened up at the end of the street I live on, I gave it the eye and made a note in my mind to go there and add it to the plentiful restaurant reviews on dooyoo. Good Chinese food in the capital city of Poland is hard to come by, there's plenty of cheap shacks and small restaurants set up by the Vietnamese community but it's hard to work out what meat you are eating, the slop on top seems to vary little and I have a feeling that the people cooking are not chefs but merely people cooking to earn a living because their only other option is to go into the fake clothes business, an enterprise which due to the closing down of several markets and the improved wealth of the local residents is definitely on the decline.
Sapaya looked a notch up, whilst the restaurant itself had a glassy feel to it, it felt like an insect room in a zoo with large glass windows and small green trees hovering over you. There was also a selection of badly mounted photographs and pictures of Asian countries, some of which hung in precarious positions and others that were lazily just lying against the wall. I wasn't judging it by its appearance too much as they'd just opened, the food is where my mind would be made up.
Starters were the first up and the dish was 'sajgonki' - or spring rolls as we know them, my wife pulled her nose up at them but I was starving and delved in, it was only half way through the first one that I noticed a strong pooey smell - old meat perhaps? Who knows, I was starving and have a strong stomach so waded through them but the taste was fairly rank, the meat chewy and smelly - the pastry a little tough.
Tried to wash the taste down with some coca-cola before preparing myself for round 2, a beef dish with vegetables, rice and pineapple. The pineapple was faultless, the meat was plentiful but rather chewy, the vegetables seemingly were frozen rather than fresh and the sauce was dull and salty. The rice was pretty stodgy and I really must stop in my hunt for a decent Chinese restaurant here or all my organs will be damaged!! I mean, it's not hard to cook rice.. the Indians can seemingly do a good job of their restaurants here so why are the Chinese/Vietnamese faltering?!
Prices are reasonable but I don't really recommend the place. It's only saving grace is that the waitress was cheerful - a rarity amongst Warsaw staff.