I would dearly love to see this place in action on some hoppin' Saturday night.
As we sampled our tasty borschts, both red and white, on a quiet afternoon after food shopping our way around the hood, it was all left to my imagination: What goes on here here at night?
By day the Polish news hums in the background as do conversations in Polish too; mostly held by older gentlemen at the bar eating lunch with brown bread and a beer.
As we enjoyed our icy cold Zywiecs in frosty mugs at the dark wood bar, I took in the scene.
There are mirrored walls, disco balls, a peculiar mural of outer space.. and the signs with the camera on them which remind you, "WARNING All activities are recorded to aid in the prosecution of any crime committed against this facility..." Â
Well, a midday Polish beer drinking and soup slurping was all that was being captured during our visit, but I'm gonna get to the bottom of this mysterious place some night. What goes on?!
Went here after Syrenkas on our Polish food tour on a Sat afternoon. Â High standards were set, because we were all pretty pleased with what they had to offer. Â Most of us ordered some different Polish beers and were all satisfied with our choices. Â My friend got tripe soup and said it was the best he ever had.
The table shared the black sausage, beet salad, potato pancakes, kielbasa and potato and cheese pierogies. Â The potato pancakes were a little greasy and not crispy enough for me. Â But that didn't stop me from eating two of them. Â The piergoies here we ordered fried, while good, I prefer them steamed. Â The kielbasa we got fried instead of boiled and we all thought it was great; the girlfriend in particular LOVED it with mustard. Â
We loved that the quality of food did not dip with the addition of a full bar. Â Being able to drink beer and eat delicious food cannot be underrated enough.
EAT HERE! This place is the best. The atmosphere is great--sort of a dive bar-disco-diner, the beer is Polish, and the perogies are so good that you might have a moment of fright that you lost your passport. Come for the borscht but stay for the pickle soup--yum. Oh and please, do not confuse this place with the other New Wave Cafe in town.
Review Source:Awesome food, awesome service, awesome prices. A Saturday night in January my husband and two kids wanted something fast, cheap and quick. Â A friend mentioned New Wave to me and I thought I would try it. Â I went in first to make sure we could bring the kids (as it is a bar) . Â They said of course. Â We were the only people in there. Â The menu had a lot of stuff on it that I haven't had in a long time. Â My father's family is Polish. Â We ordered the pierogi, potato pancake and a chicken cutlet platter and my husband had a pork chop platter. Â They were all super delish. Â Sometimes Polish food can be greasy or heavy but it wasn't. Â We left stuffed and the bill was less than $50.00 for a family of 4, that's pretty good. Â We will definitly go back. Â The waitress was really sweet and my kids got a kick out of the artwork!!
Review Source:Had a nice dinner here. Â Points of note, it is in Port Richmond not Kensington. Â The chicken noodle soup was worthwhile. Â The service was good, the authenticity of the place was what made it for me. Â The people were speaking Polish and watching the news in Polish. Â The art was quite fun, and the little booths were very retro. Â I thought the menu selection was a little limited...I wanted more healthy choices, but overall for Polish food, which I can't say I have ever really had, it was pretty good. Â Plus, the other good news is that it is actually open for dinner while its competitors are all closed. Â I had the stuffed cabbage, which was good. Â My husband said it was better than he expected and was so happy he ordered another one. Â The price was right too...decent food at great prices. Â The service was prompt and friendly too! Â Recommended.
Review Source:Divey, wacky, delicious. If I could bottle the perfect place for me to drink cheap, eat cheap, this would be the place. But don't be put off by the cheap moniker. Yes, you can feast here without spending a lot of zloties?, but it is totally awesome amazing home cooked Polish cuisine. Visited Krakow last March, food was good there, better here. Â C'MON!
Review Source:Awesome food, awesome service, awesome prices. I went here with a couple home-grown polish folks and they were as impressed with the cuisine as I was. My girlfriend got the pierogi, and they were super delish. I got the "cabbage and meat" which was essentially sauerkraut with pork, and the kraut wasn't mushy and the pork was tender as could be.
The artwork on the walls will definatly give you something to talk about, and the local color is quite colorful. Our waitress was awesome!
It's really confusing to me that there are two New Waves Cafes in Philadelphia. It's pretty funny since one is a restaurant in Queen Village and the other, a Polish dive in Port Richmond. I visited recently with a group of friends for lunch. I love that we are painfully out of place. Most people are middle aged and speaking Polish. And even though we're not the normal clientele, the waitress/bartender was very nice. It's almost like mom is serving you, assuming mom is very Polish.
They have several polish beers on tap and in the bottle. I had a pint of Okocim at $3, and it tasted about as good. My first visit here a year ago, I had soup, and it was delicious. But since I had borsch for dinner the previous night, I decided to order potato pancakes instead. These were good and crsipy, but nothing spectacular. There are much better options on the menu. We ordered several different kinds of perogies. Everyone ordered fried, and they came out with perfect consistency. The cheese and potato were good, but a bit bland. I enjoyed the mushroom ones more, and really loved the suspiciously labeled "meat" perogies. With a little sour cream on top, all of the perigies were a great choice. We also had an order of kielbasa. Topped with (presumably) homemade mustard, this was fantastic. I'm fairly certain I could eat anything off the menu here and be happy.
Bottom Line: I love eating here. You're thrown off by the brightly painted, beach themed sign out front. It's usually pretty empty, and soccer with Polish commentary is liking playing in the background. You can eat for under $10. And all of the food is made in house or locally. And delicious. It's kind of a trip to step right into the heart of Polish Port Richmond, and it's a lot of fun.
Stopped in with my mom for lunch. Â I know how to pronounce Poland's most popular beer now (Zywiec), but we didn't drink this time. Â The prices are really inexpensive (a few dollars less for the same dishes I order at Polish places in other cities, or at Warsaw in Center City).
My mom loved her tripe soup. Â It was peppery and flavorful (but I still hate the texture of tripe). Â She agreed with me that my lima bean soup was a bit salty. Â The bowls of soup were so big that we brought home most of our entrees and had them for dinner. Â "Whatever happened to 'a cup of soup'?" my mom wondered.
The golabki was, once again, just okay. They use a nice blend of meats and a bit of rice, and the sauce is not sweet like you'll find at some places. Â The mizeria (cucumber-dill salad) was simple but good, with fresh dill and cucumbers sliced paper-thin like I like them.
My bigos (a hunter's stew with a sauerkraut base and traditionally featuring different meats and game) was good. Â I find that it really is a customized dish that is different in every kitchen. This one had more liquid and more ham/pork than others I've eaten. Â My mom much preferred it to the less liquid (and more sour sauerkraut) versions we've had elsewhere. The flavors were more subtle and probably better blended. But I prefer sour, and the more subtle flavors weren't really what I'd expected.
The soups are the standouts here. Try that and the kielbasy and you'll leave happy.
There's absolutely nothing fancy about the New Wave Cafe. The decor is like Xanadu-meets-Warsaw, with that kind of cheap knock-off Patrick Nagel artwork that decorated every condo coke den in 1981. Apparently the place also turns into a "nightclub" on weekend nights, but I never stuck around for the entertainment. It's the tiny delicious menu that brings me in. Almost everything on the menu is a variation of cabbage, potato or keilbasa. (Although they do have mozzarella sticks on the menu -- but don't order them. They're status quo sticks and come with a weird cold sauce.) Â The pierogies (fried or steamed) are made fresh and the best I've ever had. The keilbasa platter is simply a big fried piece of keilbasa, scored in spots, with a side of spicy mustard. The potato pancakes are average and not all that well-seasoned, but they're still potatoes and for that reason, they're ok by me. The thing I liked most on the menu is the bigos: a big soupy plate of cabbage/kraut with bits of chopped keilbasa, served with three slices of day-old rye bread for sopping it all up. (The "day old" part probably isn't intentional, but it works anyway.) My BF enjoys the borcht, but I won't go near the stuff. There's also a pickle soup that gets raves.
The Polish beers are strong and cheap -- I think $2.50 for a big bottle. There was a chalkboard advertising $2 Kamikazes, but I didn't partake. Thing is, even if you get totally loaded on liquor while talking to the Eastern Europeans at the bar and watching Poland's version of CNN on the bar's TV, the food they serve is the best kind of food to line your stomach and straighten you back out.
The New Wave Cafe is worthwhile adventure. it's a corner bar with homestyle polish cooking. There are some booths in the back where the alien like decor covers the walls. apparently latenight on weekends it becomes a disco.
a great selection of polish beers. Â friends had the bigos and keilbasa platter. i had yummy borcht and steamed pierogies. (had them fried on another visit and they are much better steamed.) try both the potato and the mushroom - both are great.
With a last name like mine, you'd probably never guess I'm Polish. But I am, on my mother's side. Thanks to my babcia and mamusia, I grew up on a steady diet of kielbasa, pierogies, golompki, borscht and bigos.
So when my colleague told me about the New Wave Cafe, a Polish mom-and-pop joint in Port Richmond, I could hardly contain my excitement. "It was recommended by a friend of mine who knows his kielbasa," she said. After googling the place and reading a Philly Weekly review that deemed the food "like babcia used to make," I jumped at the chance to make the New Wave my first food group pick.
As I drove into Port Richmond, I noted the Polish delis, bakeries and other family-owned businesses along the main drag, and I marveled at the Catholic church, which dwarfed them all. "This is gonna be great," I thought. "Some authentic Polish food in an authentic Polish restaurant in an authentic Polish neighborhood in Philadelphia."
An unassuming little place on the corner of Alleghany, the New Wave resembles a bar more than a restaurant. Aside from the kitschy decor (which included neon wall paintings of various planets and a statue of an alien that appeared to be giving us the finger), I felt like I was in Poland as soon as I walked in. Four men sat at the bar chatting to the bartender in Polish, and a Polish newscast blared from the television in the corner. I was a bit concerned when I saw that there were only 3 or 4 tables that appeared to be for dining (drinking was obviously the primary purpose here), but my anxiety subsided as soon as I saw the authentic menu.
We ordered some potato pancakes as an appetizer to share. I ordered the pierogies and borscht for my main course and some Polish beer (Okocim) to wash it all down. The Okocim was fabulous, no complaints there. But my disappointment set in as soon as I tasted the food. The potato pancakes had the right thickness and crispiness, but they needed more salt. I tried my friend's cucumber salad, which also needed more salt as well as some lemon and dill. My borscht was okay--for some reason it was lukewarm (there's nothing worse than lukewarm soup) and they forgot the sour cream. The pierogies were the most dissatisfying part of the meal. Granted, I shouldn't have ordered them fried (steamed is the traditional way), but there's really no excuse for how overdone and dry they were.
Maybe that Philly Weekly review was outdated, or maybe it was just a bad night, I don't know. All I know is that our food wasn't fabulous. I appreciated the cultural experience and the opportunity to drink Polish beer, and I'd go back to Port Richmond for sure, but I'll be trying some other Polish mom-and-pop shops before I head back to the New Wave Cafe.
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