The Polish equivalent of the late night burrito

Tuesday and Wednesday, well, they weren't just any days. They are the semifinals of the World Cup! And, I have two of my favorite teams left in the mix. Holland, of course, which has been number 1 in my eyes since 2002. And Spain, a very fun team to watch that always falls in to very bad luck. So, I knew both of these evenings would be spent in some (hopefully atmospheric, hopefully lucky) bar watching these two matches. Tuesday played out precisely that way. The Netherlands-Uruguay match was fascinating, one of the best games I've seen. Both teams fought hard, and the Dutch made use of their opportunities to put home 3 goals. Wow!

To celebrate, I headed down the street to the main square in Kazimierz, Plac Nowy. There, a 16-sided building was full of purveyors of something called zapiekanki. After some sleuthing, this appeared to be a street pizza served and french bread. I was intrigued.

I headed for the place with the longest line. Curiously, some of them had no line at all but one had a line of about 25 people. Never one to go against the crowd when it comes to food, I hopped in line.

And the menu was fairly straightforward, thank god for pictures. When I got the front, I tried out my very beginning polish by saying the names of the ingredients I wanted. The cashier said "I'm impressed." That either meant "Nice job, I can tell you don't speak Polish, but you said that very well" or it meant "Listen, joker, why are you bothering me when I speak really good English." I couldn't tell. Regardless, I got my prize a little while later.

My zapiekanki came with salami (salami), szczypiorek (chives), kukurydza (corn), and ostry dracula sauce. It was excellent, the perfect "my team just won a World Cup semifinal" victory food. It was very large. It was very warm. And the ingredients all worked the way late night food should. Nothing was too in your face, rather it all easily blended together. The dracula sauce seemed to be some combination of garlic and hot sauce, and I would love to have a bottle of it. I don't think this was the healthiest meal of all time, but it sure was yummy.