Mamuska!

My mother's Polish so I've grown up on Polish home cooked food. I took my parents there for a treat (Not long out of uni, so I'm a bit of a cheap skate!). The food was tasty, well portioned and cheap for London. I felt transported back to Poland and obliged to make an effort and speak Polish.

I've just came back from a two week trip from Wroclaw, a Polish city I've never visited before and loved everything about it. It's got such a cool arty vibe and it's got some great drinking/milk bars. The trip turned in to a mass pig out and brought back comforting memories.

I plan to go to Mamuska again very soon and reminisce over the time spend in Wroclaw with an English girl I met out there. Bring on the pierogi!

We thought we should respond to Hanna's review. She is absolutely correct that there is an error on the menu, and that reprinting is very costly. (By the way, we are changing over to a new winter menu in 2 weeks!) Hanna should have been warned when ordering that the fruit pierogi come as a set of four, not five like the other pierogi. Unfortunately we had a new cashier working and she forgot. However, when we did try to explain and suggest some sort of solution, Hanna's boyfriend kept interupting and just got more angry. He did not give us a chance to make good. They also emptied the ketchup and mustard onto their otherwise-empty plates, so I guess between the cost of the condiments and the bad review, this group of people somehow feel better. I only wish they had given us a chance to offer a solution, but these customers seemed to be set for a fight! At £5 a main course of freshly cooked food, what we are doing is not easy. And when we get it wrong, we do offer refunds. But this time, we never got the chance. We only hope that readers will read our response as well as the review. Smacnego! Ian at Mamuśka!

The food is ok but the service is horrible. I asked if I could get 5 fruit dumplings for 3 pounds (in the menu as starter: 1/2 pierogi- normally you get 10 dumplings for a fiver) and the lady said: of course! Two other friends I was with got their food and my dumplings arrived shortly after. The only thing was, there were only 4 instead of 5. I went back to the counter, the lady apologized and gave my plate back to the kitchen staff. Then she got it back and tried to explain that there is an error in the menu and you actually only get 4 dumplings if you choose the ones with a fruit filing. I was really disappointed and regretted not taking 10, as the 4 I got were really small. I got back to the table. My boyfriend decided to speak to the manager about our complaint. The manager said that most of the customers understood that when you take fruit dumplings you only get 4 even though the menu said 5. (pure logic! fruit are more expensive than meat, said the manager). Also he said that printing menus is expensive, so they didn't manage to correct the error yet. Maybe they should then remove the menus and just write the menu on a big board? Or train their staff properly? Was not giving me one dumpling worth losing at least 3 customers? Even though the portions were small, the food was value for money. Such a shame that the customer service and the overall management of the place is so poor.

Perhaps ordering a bowl of kapusniak on such a hot day was a mistake, but it was worth the embarrassing sweatiness that ensued! Big bowl of sweet cabbage soup with some sausage & potato in it, served with Polish bread. Absolutely fab. I overordered by getting some minced pork pierogi as well. Very tasty though. Soup & pierogi to share would have been more than enough. Will definitely go back. Maybe when it's less oppressively hot!

@ Arek
I was there with my friend and we were sharing the meal between us as I wanted to try many things from the menu. Hope that makes it more clear for you. I guess your comment trying to impose that my post was not genuine raises a question who hired you to write on here ?

Daniel,
have you eaten pierogi z miesem, pierogi ruskie, schabowy, bigos and nalesniki ???
Five big meals and one visit? Are you joking?
Everybody knows it is impossible. Who hired you to write that opinion?

@ Tashunka
Dear friend - going to Mamuska I was not hoping to have restaurant expierience. Bar Mleczny in Poland is a place where you can eat cheap and a lot - it should serve edible foods however ! most of the foods served there were just simply not worth even a penny.I know my food as I cook myslef a lot and I know when it is fresh and good, on top of that as a Pole I also have an idea what it shoud taste like. In defense of Mamuska I can only tell that recently friends of mine visited it and were very happy with everything - I hope I was there just on a very bad day and usually it is much better there.

Daniel sounds like a guy who is just not a big fan of polish food I think. I have been to Mamuska and the food is good as well as service, it's cheap to compare to some other polish places + I agree with David, when place is full of poles that is a very good sign. I am getting a bunch of people to go there next week.

Daniel!!!
How can you complain so strongly about a place which charges £5 for a meal? It's not a 5 star restaurant and it doesn't pretend to be...
Food is very good, fresh, all prepared on the premises. I have been in a few Polish restaurants in London and Mamuska food rates very highly...
Service very friendly, nothing to complain at all...

Lured by positive review on here I have visited mamuska few weeks ago. Unfortunatelly it was a very dissapointing expierience. I have ordered few items from the menu that can be regarded as typicaly polish dishes. None of them were actually good and some of them were just not edible at all. Pierogi z miesem ( meat stuffed dunplings ) were filled with watery meat masses and were overcooked and most likely re-heated. Russian dumplings ( stuffed with potato and cottage cheese ) were much better but still far from perfect. Pork escalope ( schabowy ) was dry and greasy and tasteless. Bigos ( hunters stew ) was acceptable but still far too greasy. To fisnish I have ordered cottage cheese stuffed pancakes ( nalesniki ) those were re-heated and dunken in burned oil , cottage cheese stuffing inside them was hard and clotted and it should be fluffy and light. Traditional polish fruit drink was far too sweet and had strong artificial aftertaste so i recon was not made form fruit really but from some kind of instand powder. I loved the idea of visiting bar mleczny in london hoping that it will be an expierience that will revoke memories of my home land that I visit so rarely. Unfortunately it was the worse culinary expierience I have had in last few years. I feel very sorry that many people may visit this place and have a very bad idea about what polish food is like. Beware ! it is waste of time and money - there are better places to eat in London

I go here for lunch as I work near by and the food is really authentic, good value and the staff are great. I'm very fond of this place and really recommend it. I took friends one evening and they have a good range of polish beers and vodkas.

been there yesterday for lunch and the place is charming, in an eastern european way! the decor is like a room full of wallpapering tables and loud polish tv blaring out, but the place is filled with real poles [always a good sign] and a charming waitress doling out yummy dishes and polish asides. the pierogi were just like my austrian mum used to make and the polish schnitzel lage and wholesome. polish beers and charm in spades, a great place for a cheap and welcoming meal. doviznenya!!!!!