Smacznego is the Polish version of Bon Appetit and it was pronounced to us by our waitress at Amadeus restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We met “The Caller” and his charming wife for dinner the other night. Amadeus calls themselves an Austro-Hungarian restaurant to encompass the assorted dishes that they offer. My Bride and I have dined there from the first year that they have opened, and we also had dinner one night with Oliver and his wife of The Winegetter fame.

The Caller and his wife got to the restaurant prior to us, as the weather that evening was terrible, in fact they got there before the wait staff, and they poured themselves a glass of wine each, waiting for everyone to arrive. We started off the evening with an assortment of Pierogies and Polish Sausage as our appetizers, as we tend to be very casual and always want to try assorted dishes amongst ourselves. We all enjoyed the house salad after the appetizers along with a couple of orders of their wonderful hot rolls. My Bride and The Caller both decided on having the Polish Plate which consisted of grilled Polish Kielbasa, Golabek (stuffed cabbage), Bigos (pork sauerkraut stew) and a Pierogie. The Caller’s wife went with an order of Paprikash with shredded chicken, bell peppers, Paprika and onions in a white-wine sauce over a bed egg noodles and it was a very healthy serving. I opted for Bitki with Kopytka, pork tenderloin medallions with home made dumplings in herbed brown gravy and a side of Kapusta Salad. For dessert we all ordered different dishes and sliced each cake into four slices for sharing, and we tried: Costanza (an orange liquor sponge cake with layers of white and dark chocolate Mousse), Sacher Torte (the classic Austrian chocolate cake with raspberry jam and chocolate ganache), Lemon Torte (another sponge cake with lemon cream cheese and lemon curd) and Polish Poppy seed Cake (with one of the largest layers of apple poppy seed filling that I have ever seen with Vanilla custard and chocolate syrup) along with coffee.

We enjoyed some wine that evening as well. Our first bottle of wine was Trivento Malbec Reserve 2013 from Mendoza, which is Argentina’s largest wine producing area. This was an extremely smooth bottle of Malbec, and the tannins were very mellow and thoroughly enjoyable from the first glass to the last. Trivento wines are owned by the much larger Conch y Toro wine corporation. We decided to try a different bottle of wine next and we ordered Domaine de la Bastide Cotes du Rhone 2013. One of my favorite regions in France and this wine was a blend of Shiraz, Grenache and Carignan and it was just as mellow and easy drinking as the earlier Malbec. Two delightful bottles of wine with our assortment of dishes and we were all satisfied with the choices. Along with dessert, we ordered two glasses of Vinum Regum Rex Vinorum Tokaji Szamorodni Edes 2011. Tokaji or Tokay is that classic Hungarian dessert wine that was originally made for the aristocracy of Hungary, and its production survived through the Communist era and the wine is still being produced, though now there are several producers, as for years, it was a monopoly. The wine is made from primarily from the Furmint grape that is known for it botrytis rot that has made it famous, but the wine can also be blended with Harslevelu and Muscat Blanc. The wine we had that evening was the basic Tokaji Szamorodni Edes (sweet) without any of the enhancement of the puttonyos, which I have written about in the past. The wine is high in acidity and sweetness and is always a perfect dessert wine, especially with the type of dinner that we enjoyed. “Smacznego”