European Meat & Deli Cracovia

This Polish grocery and deli is a great find. They have the best selection of Jaffa cakes I have ever seen. They have an abundant selection of unique cakes, sweets, candy etc… I really should not eat that stuff, but it is still fun to browse. The deli has a good selection of home made lunch offerings. My thing is the cabbage and mushroom perogies. If you are a big meat eater you will do very well. This place is a unique treasure and worth checking out.

I stumbled on this deli as my dr’s office is just around the corner. They make their own deli meats and they are preservative-​free. I tried the polish head-​cheese, mortadella and a pork roast. The head-​cheese is definitely one of the best I’ve tasted and not full of gelatin like most other kinds of head-​cheese. You have to like garlic as I find garlic is a predominant flavour but their meats are flavourful and not as salty as deli meats tend to be which is a big plus for me. Service was excellent and friendly and as I was obviously not familiar with all the different sausages and meats the girl at the counter readily gave me a generous slice of each of my selections to taste before I ordered.

Does eating home cooked food by German and Russian family members make me a tough judge? Probably. I do accept there are differences between what I grew up with and the Polish deli food I finally tried at Cracovia today. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by some of it but Cracovia still deserves 4 stars overall.
I asked for the non meat filled pierogies. I was told the others are filled with potato and cottage cheese, but there was no cottage cheese to be found unless it was pounded into potato form and I didn’t notice it. The pierogies were pretty flat and could have used more filling. They weren’t anything special.
The stuffed meatball is huge and rather salty. It looks like it’s made with beef and pork and is a bit fatty for my taste. It’s stuffed with mushrooms but they appear to be out of a can. It was a let down and I wouldn’t bother with this again.
The cabbage roll was the best item I ordered and would recommend it. I prefer meat filling but at least this was made with a good balance of meat and rice (I find rice only cabbage rolls to be very bland). They make a decent tomato sauce accompaniment.
I won’t be returning to this end of town for a long while so if I visit Cracovia again, the cabbage roll will be my only repeat order from the deli. It would be a shame to not be adventurous and try other food.

THEY HAVE THE BEST POLISH LUNCH DELI. I come here for lunch from time to time to grab their cabbage rolls, meat dumplings, schnitzle, gwyorza soups, and PORK HOCKS. I recommend anyone reading this to get all of them, no more, no less.
Everything here is in Polish, but don’t worry, they provide English labels for them. And in case you’re confused about what you’re grabbing off the shelf, the sweet ladies are always glad to help you out, even suggesting what to with the can of oiled mackarel in your hand, the one you originally thought was chocolate spread.
Good lord why haven’t I reviewed this Polcan Wonder after being here 20 times?!
Once in a while, when I feel like passing out in fattened sugary state, I would also raid their Polish candy section. I would suggest getting a pound of these yellow wrapped cream candies.
If you’ve done everything I told you to do at this point then you should give me $ 20.
Unilocal’s 30 Day Challenge 2012 — ¹⁵⁄₃₀

love coming to cracovia on the weekends mostly because of their schnitzel for 3.00.
friendly staff, but gets very busy. They don’t have their hot food during the week, which I sadly found out on a weekday when I was craving some perogy and schnitzel.

I miss Cracovia! Since moving to Edmonton I haven’t been able to visit there recently, but when I worked in the area I would always stop by on my lunch breaks. While their to-​go hot food section doesn’t have very many vegetarian options, what they do have is delicious.
Everytime I ate there I would get the cabbage/​mushroom perogies with a side order of seasoned potatoes. Yum! These are by far my favourite perogies. There were weeks I would eat them everyday and still not get sick of them. They also sell them frozen for you to take home and cook for yourself. Be warned: the potatoes sell out quickly after lunch so make sure you get there early if you want some.
The market itself is a lot of fun to browse. They have all kinds of specialty candies, chocolates, and sodas from Eastern Europe as well as more practical goods like canned foods and toiletries.
The only drawback is that they don’t take credit cards so make sure you have cash or debit on you before you go.
Cracovia is a hidden gem. Definitely make an effort to stop by and support this local family-​business.