Friday food

Meat. Today's Friday Food is all about meat, and a wonderful place to buy it and sit down and eat it.

 

Kramarczuk's in NE Minneapolis. This neighborhood institution is the purveyor of meats, specializing in eastern European sausages. You can also get darn good steaks, slab bacon, leg of lamb, all that sort of thing, but for goodness sake, if you're going to go, get some sausage. Their signature item is Krakowska, a wonderful garlicky Polish sausage. But there are also numerous variations on other kinds of sausages. Like blood sausage? Here's your source. Need Italian sausage? Spicy or not? You'll find both. Andouille? Chorizo? You're in luck. Plain brats? Lamb brats? Curry brats? French apple brats? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

 

I'm not sure many vegetarians would want to visit, but for the record, they also sell scrumptious baked goods, including honey spiced cake, apple streusel, and cream puffs.

Here's the best part, though. After you've stood in line--and it's likely there will be others there ahead of you--and smelled the heavenly sausage/smoked meat/garlic aromas, you might be hungry. No problem.

 

Because right next door is a cafeteria-style restaurant, serving all manner of hearty eastern European foods.

 

Casual and friendly. Enormous portions. Reasonable prices. Get your fill of cabbage rolls, varenyky (little filled dumplings, like pierogi), brats, Krakowska sandwiches, hearty soups, or goulash. On my most recent visit, I went with the Szegedin Goulash.

 

It's a goulash of meat, sauerkraut and onions, served with a trio of varenyky (you can choose from cheese, sauerkraut, or meat/cheese potato; I chose one of each) as well as sour cream as a garnish for the varenyky.

Fancy? No. Good? Oh, my, yes.

Comments

[Miss T]

You spelled it! Of course, you had a photograph of the sign. :o)