3 reasons why you hate Poland.

I don't think that Poles are traditionally big restaurant goers. We eat at home and only when traveling we eat out. Or when we are celebrating something. Personally I don't care about restaurants much.

I have to agree, they are not. I visited Poland twice during the last 5 years and I still don't know how a kebab tastes, because I was always too full from a home cooked meal to try one! Forget about any trip to a restaurant.. :(

Getting back to food, another problem with their international food attempts is they don't follow simple rules. they do it to themselves.

Pizza should have TOMATO SAUCE, not ketchup. mozzarella cheese, not the rubbery crap trying to imitate mozzarella cheese. and please, please, hold the corn. pizza was NEVER meant to have corn.

Sushi should NOT have Philadelphia Cream Cheese or mayonnaise. the only time I have ever seen that is in Poland, and trust me, the Japanese do not use either of those ingredients in their sushi.

I was recently in Pizza Hut and decided to order pasta in an alfredo sauce. absolutely disgusting. i can personally guarantee you that if you were to go to a Pizza Hut in America and order the same dish, it would be a completely different meal, and rather tasty.

poles try to "polish" everything in the restaurants, which not only kills the food's authenticity, but the taste as well. this is not a money issue, it's a mentality issue. when they start wising up to this, the tourism will reflect it.

i can only speak for my own country, but the misconceptions Poles have about America is absolutely baffling. their only exposure they have to Americano is what they see and get in Poland, which is this twisted, jaded view filled with half-assed attempts and failed imitations. my students still are amazed when I tell them Coke/Pepsi/Mountain Dew are crap in Poland, but delicious in America. "You mean they taste different???? How??!!!"

on and on and on.

Unfortunately only Italians seem to know this.The rest sleeps.


Yes,I have noticed that too.They add peculiar tastes mostly sour.Look what they made out of hungarian gulash etc.
Not that US don't make their interventions but they are usually to the direction of bigger portions and spicy ingredients.

uhhmmm.....not really. At the very least, the entire country of America knows this. in America, I have never seen ketchup put on pizza. ever.

US pizza tastes differently than italian.It has stronger,more industrial taste.

...and that is Poland's "fault" exactly how?
I thought it was the brands themselves who dictated what and how is being produced in different countries? Also, you are the first person I know who says that, and I've worked with plenty Americans (ranging from Texas to Minnesota, with Ohio and Pennsylvania thrown in for good measure, and even a bit of California) ;-)

Coke tastes better in Europe than in America.In America they sweeten everything A LOT.

FUZZY, do you know what okonomiyaki means in English? It means 'as you like it'. This Japanese pizza/pancake, probably my favourite food in Hiroshima, was never 'meant' to have cheese in it but I found a place in an alleyway that did it that way. It tasted very good I might add. Good old Hirano.

It's just preference. I tried a whole range of sushi in the kaiten-zushi places but never with cream cheese. Still, you can always avoid it and I didn't see anything of the sort in the sushi restaurant here.

The Mountain Dew does taste a bit different right enough. I was in heaven when I tried it in Japan. They have drinks machines at the sides of many roads and it was a Godsend. They also had Fanta Grape, lovely!

Have you been to Italy? Italian food in any country is not as good as in Italy itself.

I've been to a few foreign restaurants in Lodz, Lublin and Warsaw and most were great tasting food. The Spanish restaurant in Lodz was poor but that is the only one.

Coke tastes different in Poland and Germany to the UK. Chocolate in UK tastes different to Poland and Germany. Its down to local tastes.

Have you been to the UK? The weather there is 12 months of gray, cold, wind and wet.

I never said it was poland's fault. And for what it's worth, I was an avid Mt. Dew drinker in America, drank a can of the stuff nearly every day, and I can attest that Mt. Dew in Poland is basically not Mt. Dew, it's something completely different. Again, this has nothing to do with fault, it has to do with fact, but this is getting off of the original point i was making.


it's Poland's preference. Poland makes a conscious decision to use ketchup instead of tomato sauce, cream cheese in their sushi, etc. because they think it's what will sell. If the Poles are buying it, then hey, it's a good business decision, but for tourists/expats, they consider things like sauce-less pizza with corn on it and cheese that resembles something like rubber from a car tire, as gross. That's all I'm saying.


Never, but I've had the next best thing: Italian immigrants in the NY area. Imported Italian ingredients, real meats and cheeses, absolutely delicious, sold to me by a guy with a thick Italian accent.

Aha, ok. Well, you have to cater for all tastes and as long as they have the regular options on the menu, all is well.

Poland is not the only country to put (sweet)corn on their pizzas. We do it back home too.

I don't like the drowning of it in ketchup. My wife does that and she should pay for the ketchup.

Are you crazy? Italian pizza SUCKS...probably because those Albanimals cook it.

I always knew you had lost it.

Really? What about the accessible civil service? What about the fact that cities and towns tend to have excellent, subsidised public transport, something unthinkable in America?


Some stuff is. Some stuff is incredibly cheap. It's just the way it is, and no country in the world is different.


In some respects, yes. In others, no. Just like Britain is stuck in the days of empire, and Germany is only now accepting their post WW2-fate, which it didn't do for many years. Just ask any West German schoolchild which borders they learnt in school - it most definitely wasn't the Federal Repbulic's!


Really? That would be why even the most lowly cafe assistants will attempt to speak English in many cases?


Here's a hint - try and eat somewhere that doesn't have English menus. Of course, what do you expect in a country that is overwhelmingly Polish? Poland wasn't built on immigration!


You've successfully learnt Finnish, Icelandic, Japanese and Chinese lately then? The fact that you can't learn it is your fault, not the Polish language.


Changing. Even Poznan cable TV offers the original soundtracks for some channels.


I wonder what public transport you've been taking? As for inefficient, Polish public transportation is anything but that. But then again - you're probably basing your experiences on taking one night bus once.


Why is it above 10c today, sunny and quite warm by late November standards then?

Of course, you don't have to live here.


Plenty of business sense here, otherwise people wouldn't be driving round in mostly-new cars, would they?

A very well-thought-out reply, delph. I go along with what you said and would change only the weather part. Then again, it's much better than Aberdeen's coastal rain climate so I can't complain.

The language is easier for some than for others. As long as you give it a shot. I found it easier than Japanese in many ways.

Exactly :) To me, it's bliss - you'd be lucky to go a week in Aberdeen without rain in winter, whereas it's quite normal here.

To be honest, Poland is very much what you make of it. There are examples of overwhelming stupidity here, but at the same time, some of the latest child protection stuff in the UK is very, very, very scary stuff - to the point where a male man would be well advised to stay out of it. Poland is much more laid back, yet you don't see paedophiles in every corner.

Likewise - the weather might not be fantastic here for 12 months of the year, but then again, I can walk through downtown Warsaw and not be killed. I wouldn't do that in downtown Detroit or Los Angeles!

woooooooow. well, i guess some people are more patriotic than others.

let's go step by step here, because these replies are just off the wall.

comparing transportation in america vs. poland is laughable, and because you tied this comment in with relative convenience of a country, i'll approach this response like this: literally everybody in america, in their late teenage years, gets their driver's license and a car to drive. EVERYBODY drives in america. if you live in a major city, plenty of public transport, but again, many people even in the cities own cars. what could be more convenient than having your own car with big parking lots in every place you want to drive to? if you prefer to stand in the cold waiting for a filthy smelly tram or take those dreadful polish trains, prosze bardzo.

prices......YES, other countries in this world are different. enough said.

customer service: i can't believe you would even suggest that polish customer service is quality, and your example essentially is a worthless statement.

english menus??? wow, you are really starting to make some assumptions here, and you know what they say about assuming......
regardless, the fact of the matter is.....the only good food in Poland is Polish food, whatever the reason for it may be.......and it's a reason for a tourist/expat to complain about the restaurants. when you go to an Italian restaurant, you don't want to eat crappy Italian food. This is the point that is being made.

man, it's exhausting commenting on all these silly responses from you, they're so incredibly myopic that it's actually irritating to read, but I'll go on.....

I can't learn the language? Again, an assumption. Have you ever spoken to me in Polish? Fact of the matter is, you have no idea what my level of Polish is, and for what it's worth, it's most likely leaps and bounds beyond 99% of the other posters on this forum. With that said, I still reserve the right to say that Polish is a royal pain in the ass to learn, and this would fall perfectly into the criteria of this thread. Why is that so difficult to see.

Lekors.....UUUHH....again, what a non-statement you made. Listen up everybody, turn on your TV, get to a movie other than a Polish one, and tell me if there's a Lektor. What? There is? Ok. Let's move on.....

Public transport again.......and of course, yet again, a wrongful assumption from you, my dear. I have been living in Poland for 3 years, and STILL do not own a car. That's right. My horse is left foot/right foot, trams, buses, trains....you name it, I've ridden on it to get to work/friends/family/etc. I know what polish public transport is like, I don't need to try to convince anyone of it otherwise.

weather......are you even attempting to suggest that Polish weather is not total crap? Your basing this argument on an unseasonably warm November? I'm almost embarrassed for you at this point.

and as for business sense........not worth it, it's way off topic, and again, your evidence of this is not only inaccurate, but not applicable. even if it were true that most cars on the roads in poland were new, it has nothing to do with the country's business sense. honestly.

1 foreigners who complain about dumb **** like how mountain dew f'n tastes in "their" country vs here.- It's FCUKING Mt. Dew you douchebags. Go find something real to complain about.

2 Polish pizza-now that's a travesty, dry, dry, dry
3 Driving culture here, however, it is improving in my opinion.


Really you nailed in that first statement, comparing them is laughable, so why are you comparing them?


Actually this would be about 3 years in a row that november has been unseasonably warm. Yes there's a perpetual greyness here in winter and that sucks so I agree with that point. But why would feel pity for someone because they are able to if not enjoy this weather at least not get too down about it? There's lots of crap weather in parts of the U.s. and so what?


Countries aren't people. To say a country possesses any abstract sense is childish in both scope and logic. Why go about pretending you know the least bit about how Poles all across the nation do business and with whom? You may be right in your thinking but it's hard to tell cause you're all across the board on this topic. Slow down. Take a moment to relax.

And this is good for the environment how?. Most Europeans see the Americana system of driving absolutely everywhere as being incredibly bad for the environment. There's absolutely no doubt that such a car-reliant culture is bad in the long run.


Ah, so destroying the environment with fumes, combined with destroying the environment to look for oil (Alaska, anyone?) is fine, just because you can? Of course, sitting in gridlock is a most pleasant thing to do.

And I'd like to refute the point that there's public transport in major cities. If you live near a mass transit line, sure - but apart from that? It's all but non-existent.


Been on EC/IC/EX trains lately? Ah, probably not. What about a sleeper train? Ah...again, probably not. And given the fact that most European cities aren't particularly designed for cars, the tram is often the much quicker option. I can be in the centre of the city from my local tram stop in 12 minutes. If I drive, it takes at least 20, even 30 in rush hour. Tram wins.

Trams here aren't smelly and filthy - are you sure you're not mistaking Poland for somewhere else?


Let's look at three major European countries, shall we?

UK - virtually everything is imported and expensive. Eating heathily is very expensive, and public transport is incredibly expensive. Owning a car is also hideously expensive, with taxation on a car and fuel being absolutely astronomical. Insurance costs are also huge.

Switzerland - amazingly, hideously overpriced. It's a beautiful country - but when they have draconian restrictions on what can be imported, many Swiss have to resort to illegally importing things just to get round the high prices. The cost of living there isn't comparable at all to the wages, especially in Zurich and Geneva.

Norway - regular protests against the price of food, alcohol and cigarettes are absolutely unbelievably expensive. Public transport is through the roof - with a cheap bus between Oslo and Stavanger costing over 50 pounds for a 'cheap' ticket. Again, plenty of wealth - but plenty of costs, too.


It's no worse than in many other countries. Have you tried to get served in France by speaking English? Not going to happen. In Poland, they'll at least try to understand what you want instead of giving a sneer. It might not be American-standards, but most Europeans despise the "HOW CAN I HELP MY NAME IS HANK HAVE A NICE DAY" Americana standard, anyway.

I know plenty of good Italian restaurants. Harry on here is a big fan of a particular Indian chain in Warsaw. There's much more - I know for 100% fact that there's an excellent, Japanese-run Sushi bar in Poznan. Sure, ethnic food is hit or miss in Poland, but what do you really expect from a country with no real history of immigration?

I'm going to ask you again - do you speak Finnish, Icelandic, Chinese or Japanese? Even Welsh is incredibly difficult to learn and it's tough to assliminate in some parts without it. But I can't help but think that you'd prefer everyone just to speak English to the rude American.

Maybe you should consider paying for a better TV provider? I can certainly obtain the original soundtrack through my cable package on all premium channels and quite a few non-premium channels - maybe you simply haven't looked? :)


Where on earth are you living that has such a lousy system? It's not the Poland I know - apart from Lodz!


I sat in the mountains this summer for two weeks of blazing hot sunshine, +30c virtually every day and well above 10c in the evenings. The whole summer was warm - even July was beautifully warm during the day and rainy in the evening, which was no issue because - who's outside at 2am?

Polish weather is nothing compared to Scottish weather, that much is certain.

If they didn't have business sense, why is there new buildings everywhere, combined with many old buildings renovated and general wealth to be seen everywhere? In fact - if they didn't have business sense, why is Poland intact economically whereas many Eastern European states were/are in all sorts of trouble?

Maybe the business sense just isn't what you think it should be - which is oh so typically American. Remeber, you're dealing with Slavic people here, not WASP's!

thanks for the lecture....now go hug a tree :/

I have no problem with Public transport in Lodz, they have refurbished most of the tram lines now.

I'd rather travel on Lodz public transport than any UK public transport.

:)

Have they refurbished the one that goes towards the A2/DK1 junction? That line looks truly the worst thing ever :(

(mind you, the Lodz trams are incredible compared to the ones in Lwow!)

I don't know, seems pretty dumb to take a high interest long term loan to pay for something as worthless as a new car. And even more appalling is when people take out loans in currencies that they are not earning.

It's how most of the world works though, unfortunately.


I get the impression that quite a few people were missold mortgages in EUR and CHF - you're right, it is absolutely appalling to do so. The same has gone on in most of the new EU states - look at the hideous mess that Hungary found herself in!

But can you really blame people when the choice was an EUR mortgage or no mortgage?

u know something, u are pretty much a di(k. Expert on all things, do u go to pubs and expect free beers?

Law and business are your interests, nice. That was my first university course, Law and Management. I will give a contract law presentation tomorrow.

Cheers :)

(Hmm, bitter Rangers fan who can't get over the fact that they can't win at Pittodrie to save their lives?)


Yeah, both of them are fascinating - contract law is endlessly interesting because of the way that (in the UK, at least) there's almost certainly loopholes and ways to counter loopholes in virtually every aspect. I'm no fan of legalese though - if you ask me, things should be written plainly.

I find it fascinating in Poland that third party mediators are so relied on too - in the UK, we'd be straight in court to demand money, but I guess that's to do with the pathetic state of the Polish justice system.

Mind you, I find it mindboggling that people sign contracts without reading them properly!

haha, like i said, expert on all things.......i hate both rangers and celtic. but make out u know everything all the same. tell me what food i love too???

Deep fried Mars Bars, clearly! ;)