I was bumbling around Cambie Village with my wife and two hungry kids the other day on errands. The boys were clamouring for a snack at the moment we found ourselves in front of a nondescript store with a sign that read Piast European Bakery & Deli (so named one presumes after the first ruling dynasty of Poland). I didnt really want to go in. I was carrying a bunch of bags and we had lots of food at home, but the sign in my mind translated as likely home to really good sausage rolls, and who could resist that?
Its a tiny shop, perhaps no more than 200 sq.ft. of pace-able space, surrounded on all sides by display cases and shelves loaded to capacity. Its owned by Margaret Olszewska and Miroslav Hofman, a hands-on couple from Poland who opened a first incarnation of Piast on Fraser over 10 years ago before making the move to Cambie in 2009. They do all the baking in house, as evidenced by the heady smell which could turn a full man ravenous.
Being wholly unfamiliar with 95 per cent of the items on offer, I fell for it straight away. Looking at all the brightly coloured packages, tubs and jars filled with lord knows what, I felt like Charlie Bucket stepping into some Willy Wonkian showcase of new and exciting treats that had never been revealed to anyone save for an army of unseen Polish oompa loompas.
Most of the pre-packaged, imported foods appeared to have come from Poland, but there were plenty of items from other Eastern and Central European countries as well. Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, the Balkans, et cetera, all were represented. Though much of that representation appeared to be of the sweet variety (cookies, chocolates, etc), there was also a huge range of pickled items, savoury sauces and gravies (including Knorr-ish just add water packets), and a bewildering array of strange-looking condiments.
It took some time to properly pronounce Buraczki Zasmazane, which was the name of some jolly-looking red substance that I had arbitrarily picked up to show the children. Was it pepper jelly? Tomato sauce? Ketchup? Some sort of marinade? It was a mystery, and I suppose thats what I loved about the place. So fascinating are the things on offer that a food-lover with an adventurous spirit could very easily lose hours in here.
We began with what wed originally come in for: sausage rolls, both beef and spiced chicken, eating them quickly as we gawked at everything else. The pastry clung nicely to the meat, but suffered none of the dense, clammy cloyingness common to inferior rolls at lesser bakeries, shops and gas stations. They werent enough, however. As soon as theyd been devoured, we moved on to pastry perogies.
Outwardly, these resembled not the common, doughy, translucent-skinned dumplings, but rather traditional Cornish pasties. As such, they were over-sized, over-plump half moons of finger-dimpled crust baked to a golden beige and stuffed full of onion-seasoned potato. The helpful, cheerful staffer (great service here) warmed them up for us and we munched away again, chattering like excited monkeys with our mouths full whenever we noticed something new or particularly indecipherable.
Then came delicious, glazed and sugar-dusted donuts that were filled with rose hip jam. I cant recommend these enough. Hand-decorated Christmas cookies finished us off, but not before we sampled some superb European farmers sausage and continued on our whats that? safari with help, pointing well-licked fingers at the display cases and asking about everything that was attractive to us, including massive, glorious-looking six-inch-deep slabs of cake, each aglisten with sugared gelatin tops that begged to be jiggled and wiggled. These turned out to be cheesecakes, and... wow.
The novelty of the new and incomprehensible is all well and good, but Piast is more than just a repository of the enjoyably odd. The sign says it all. Its a proper European bakery and deli, so one readily recognizes the curated range of cured meats, sausages, and hams in the glass cases, and salivates over the broad selection of tiny, foil-wrapped soft cheeses.
For the road, we ordered sandwiches of thick-sliced ham and gouda with strong mustard on Portuguese buns. While these were being made to order, we turned our attention to a fridge filled with sacks of traditional perogies, offering every type of innard from sauerkraut and mushroom to cheddar and bacon. We bought a bag of the latter for the frying pan at home (which turned out well with sour cream and chives), and sniffed the bread racks, which groaned under the weight of freshly baked loaves of sour dough and several different kinds of rye. On the way out the door, I had a chuckle remembering how reluctant Id been to enter in the first place. Now, I didnt want to leave.
