Polonia Sausage House – Amazing Polish Poppy Seed Bread

Restaurant: Polonia Sausage House
Cuisine: Bakery/Dessert/Cafe
Last visited: February 22, 2010
Area: Vancouver, BC (Hastings-Sunrise)
Address: 2434 Hastings Street East
Price range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: n/a, didn’t try enough
Service: 6
Ambiance: supermarket/deli
Overall: n/a
Additional comments:

• Polish family owned/operated
• Frequented by Polish community
• Authentic
• Homemade sausages
• Popular for sausages
• Polish grocery store/deli/bakery
• Baked goods imported fresh daily from nearby bakery
• Frozen perogies available
• Bakery (smaller selection)
• Mostly cheesecakes

Recommendation: Polish Poppy Seed Bread

Another random find! I had finished eating at Le Do Vietnamese Restaurant down the street and I was craving some dessert… surprise surprise huh? =p Just walking along Hastings Street there were four bakeries just on one block and I decided to pop into Polonia Sausage House.

It was a little Polish specialty foods store and they didn’t advertise a bakery in the back, but they had one. There were only a few of each item and the selection is limited so I’m not sure how quick their turn over is. I was told that the baked goods are actually all made fresh daily, but brought it from another bakery off site. They are from an Eastern European bakery further down the street, but I’m not sure which one.

Most of the baked goods are different kinds of cheesecakes or pastries with cream. They looked okay, but I’m not a huge fan of cheesecakes so I opted for something I am a BIG fan of – the poppy seed bread! I was introduced to this from my Ukrainian friend and there are lots of interpretations of it, however this is one of the best I’ve ever had to date.

The owner was super nice and she told me they had a limited selection because they throw away anything that doesn’t get sold that day. Most bakeries should operate like this, but I hope they get eaten or given away instead of thrown out.

I want to go back for more poppy seed bread and I also want to try their sausages. They are known for their Polish sausages and they looked authentic and very food. Everyone shopping instead spoke Polish when I went and I was excited to find this gem.

On the table:

Polish Poppy Seed Bread – 6/6

• Half $4.98 Whole loaf $9.98
• The owner was super nice. She charged me $4.30 for slightly less than half a loaf because it was slightly smaller than half. Really cute.
• It was a pretty substantial loaf but I finished it in two sittings.

• I love this bread! It’s half bread and half pastry so I can’t really call it a dessert.
• This is baked off site at the bakery down the street. YUMMY!
• It’s loaded with a poppy seed! The poppy seed is almost like a paste and there are also some candied lemon peel, raisins, and walnuts in it. I loved it!
• I could have used more raisins and walnuts though.
• There were so few that I wasn’t sure if they had gotten in there by accident, but enough to know that they were intended.

• There’s a very strong fresh lemon taste and scent.
• The candied lemon pieces were actually quite big, but very good! I thought I wouldn’t like it either, but it enhanced all the flavours.

• The exterior of the bread is almost like a streusel crumb topping or coffee cake crumble.
• There was a little bit of icing and a little bit of brown sugar crumble on top which was delicious.
• The bread part is egg bread. It was dense and crumbly and almost like a lemon loaf cake but not as sweet and a bit drier.
• It dries out quickly if it is not wrapped up, but it is excellent when it is fresh or even slightly warmed up.
• It was not too sweet, but still dessert like.
• The Poppy Seed Square at Breka Bakery was much more of a dessert. I could eat this one at any any time of day.

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