You Never Leave Hungry From Polish Village!

Did you know that Chicago has the largest ethnically Polish population outside the Poland capital of Warsaw?! Today I hosted my monthly Ethnic Food Tours and we headed to the “Polish Village” neighborhood for a culinary trip to Eastern European eats & treats. We started with a hearty all you can eat buffet lunch at the legendary Red Apple Restaurant. The buffet offerings were definitely plenitful with lots of Polish specialties such as stuffed cabbage, various kinds of pierogies, blintzzes, potato and apple pancakes, saurkraut, and so many sausages! Here are pics of the buffet – which in fact was so big it had to be split into 2 rooms! (Forgive the awful red glow of the buffet heat lamps…)After letting our lunch settle and a cup of coffee to help wake us up from our food coma, we took a walk to Wally’s International Market. There, we walked the aisles full of polish and eastern european ingredients and foodstuff. I love shopping at ethnic markets & grocery stores for the simple fact that the quality of food is not only great, but so are the low prices.The busiest part of the store was definitely the sausage counter. The line was ridiculously long and I’ve never seen so many sausages hanging from the ceilings and in the deli case. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the sausage counter since it was so crowded and I felt a little awkward & touristy doing so… but here are pics of a sausage case right in front of the check out lines.