A. Blikle [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: A. Blikle 
Address:  Nowy Świat 35, Warsaw
Website: http://www.blikle.pl/
Style: Polish
Price: $$ 

This is where things get interesting. One of my regular correspondents (okay, let's admit it, I have two) went to Poland this summer. And he was given one assignment: you're going Cake Touring or you're not getting picked up from the airport. ;) I will get the whole world done just like that, I promise you! And he came back with a suitable amount, including some from Prague. Well, very well done!

Anyways, Blikle has been on my radar for years. I once was looking through a fairly outdated DK Poland book we have, assuming it would provide little surprises. After all, my family is Polish and my mom has been travelling to Poland, and Warsaw in particular, so regularly that she should know and have seen everything. Then how is it she never to Blikle!? Blikle was a mandatory stop a few years ago when one brother went along and no one could find the time. Why Blikle? According to DK, one must go to Blikle and get a classic doughnut, the humble pączek. This pastry shop and coffee shop has been in operation since the mid-1800s and is perhaps almost as known in the goodies department as the great Wedel. Perhaps not, but nonetheless, A. Blikle is an institution and now boasts of several dozen locations in the capital and beyond. The perfectly glazed doughnut topped with orange peel on their website was more than enough to force someone to go here. How I love my doughnuts.... So how did the doughnuts, those famous balls of delicious fried dough, fare? ... 

I thought by just looking at it that Blikle was a very fancy and expensive place, but I was a little surprised that it wasn't that expensive in the end. Actually, I would even call it just another bakery. There were cakes that looked very nice, but we were there for the pączki. So, we got two types of pączki: Staropolski and Rosa (sic?). Staropolski was much better. The icing on the Rosa was too cakey. Although both should be similar in terms of the dough, the one with powder tasted more like fried dough: it had crispy edges on outside, soft on inside. Good but not great. It's just an average bakery and wasn't even my favourite place for pączki during my trip. Actually, in the end, no one could beat Wawel's "ponki" in Montreal.

Rating: ***