Kramarczuk’s – Minneapolis

D.Rough and I were headed to Surdyk’s for some purchases and needed to eat dinner. We had JUST seen the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives episode where Guy went to Kramarczuk’s in Northeast Minneapolis. It’s basically across the street from Surdyk’s, so we thought we’d head there. I’ve eaten there before, but D.Rough had not. Plus, we thought we’d pick up some Christmas presents for her father – yes, we totally bought her dad a huge bunch of various giant sausages.

The restaurant is set up sort-of cafeteria style. There’s a couple of large menu boards on the wall behind the food, so you can order off there, or just look in front of you and see what looks appealing. We went back and forth on what we should eat and finally decided to cave to the media blast and order what Guy Fieri did. An order of 6 Varenykys – polish perogis or raviolis filled with meat (3) and three more with potato and cheese filling. I got the Holubet (Cabbage Roll) – a sausage roll with rice wrapped in a cabbage leaf, covered in a tomato cream sauce. The television show said they call it their version of a pork burrito. It sounded delicious.

I grabbed a Dew from the fountain, but D.Rough was in a beer mood. So I tried to order a polish beer for her. Żywiec – crazy cheap polish beer. I prefaced it with “I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I’d like the Zy-week.” This was sooo far off the mark from how she then actually pronounced it. There’s a “B” in there somewhere, right before the sneeze sound she made. She tried a couple of times, and I still didn’t get how that jumble of letters translated into that jumble of syllables. But whatever – D.Rough got her beer.

The Varenykys were waaaaaay better than I ever expected .I thought they’d be kind of flat, bland, and doughy, but they aren’t. They come with a horseradish/sour cream dipping sauce that is super light on the horseradish. It was actually quite delicious. I usually assume meat filled things are going to be better than potato filled things, but I was wrong in this case. The cheese really comes through in the potato cheese ones. These were surprisingly great.

The cabbage roll was much less cabbage-y than I expected as well. It went perfectly with the tomato cream sauce that’s on top of it. They heated this thing up for me and it basically falls apart on your fork. The cabbage isn’t tough like a burrito tortilla or anything, it’s kind of steamed so it breaks apart easily and goes well with the sausage and rice on the inside. It was really good. It’s supposed to come with sauerkraut, but neither D.Rough nor I like that, so we ended up with mixed vegetables. I think it probably would have been better paired with sauerkraut, but it was still fantastic!

D.Rough said her Zlglfwhflsdfslhg beer was pretty good as well, so overall, a fantastic meal. No complaints at all. Then we went to the deli store next door and bought a bunch of homemade sausages! Cha-ching!

www.kramarczuk.com