Life

Eating Out: First impressions are striking at Polita cafe-bistro

Decked out in day-glo orange, the cafe attached to the Polita supermarket on Belfast's Ravenhill Road is spotlessly clean Picture: Philip Walsh
Decked out in day-glo orange, the cafe attached to the Polita supermarket on Belfast's Ravenhill Road is spotlessly clean Picture: Philip Walsh Decked out in day-glo orange, the cafe attached to the Polita supermarket on Belfast's Ravenhill Road is spotlessly clean Picture: Philip Walsh

THERE are parts of Belfast that appear frequently in tourism ads – the Titanic centre, the high-end restaurants around St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast Castle.

Then there are parts of the city where tens of thousands of people actually live and work – slightly battered residential streets that don't lend themselves to holiday snaps, out-of-the way shops and industrial estates that house everything from accountancy firms to veterinary surgeries.

It's fair to say that the lower half of Ravenhill Road in east Belfast appears to be a rather unloved part of the city. The area, home to terraced houses, small convenience shops, a mini industrial estate and a shop selling wooden flooring, is the sort of anonymous place that commuters pass through and visitors only notice if they need new laminate for the spare bedroom.

Despite having lived a few minutes' up the road for several years, the lower part of Ravenhill was the place I walked through on the way to work or occasionally stopped for milk in one of the small shops. There was never any reason to linger.

In the few years since I moved, the road has seen the closure of one or two older pubs and had been looking a bit tired of late. A fairly recent addition has been Polish supermarket chain Polita, near where Ravenhill meets Albertbridge Road.

A well-established chain with several outlets across the north, including two shops in Belfast, Polita caters to Polish ex-pats and northerners keen to sample wood-smoked sausages and proper sourdough bread. A cafe, open seven days a week, adjoins Polita's Ravenhill Road branch and it was here that a friend and I met for what was supposed to be a quick midweek lunch.

First impressions were striking. The cafe was spotlessly clean, with the slightly impersonal feel of a supermarket eaterie. Decked out in day-glo orange, from the seats to the large pictures on the wall, it wasn't exactly a relaxing space but at least unforgettable.

The menu is essentially split into traditional Polish specials, including potato pancakes and 'Polish style' cottage pie, which change daily, and a more basic lunchtime menu catering for hungry office workers.

My friend and I were well prepared to sample some more exotic dishes, but confronted with a lengthy menu and a smilingly eager man behind the till, we quickly chose two reliables – a mini fry for her and a chicken, cheese and bacon toasted panini for me.

My panini (or is it technically panino? Italian speakers please clarify), was crisp and tasty and came with a small dish of chopped white cabbage, peppers, sweetcorn, red onion. The unusual side, coupled with tea that came as boiling water in two glasses with separate tea-bags, was a small reminder that we weren't in just any cafe.

My friend quickly ate her fry (delicious apart from the slightly 'processed' taste of the sausages) but couldn't quite manage the four rounds of white and brown toast that came with it. Neither of us really needed dessert but ordered two anyway from the beautiful display of cakes at the counter.

My plum cake was dense, the sort that lies in your stomach and sticks to your bones, but it tasted fresh and not too sweet. My friend's baked cheesecake was even better. Studded with flaked almonds and topped with a layer of cherry compote, it had an unusual cake base, rather than the traditional biscuit. It turns out that the only way to improve baked cheesecake is to add more cake.

Oddly the highlight of the meal was an apple juice I ordered. After a short wait, it came freshly squeezed with a thick frothy top. It tasted... well of apples, not the synthetic-tasting apple 'flavour' of some bottled juices.

Polita is never going to be a 'destination' cafe. But it offers good staples at very reasonable prices and serves much better food than similar, well-established cafes. And the apple juice alone was enough to prompt a return visit.

THE BILL

Mini fry £4.50

Panini £3.90

Apple juice £2.60

Tea (x2) £1.25 each

Plum cake £2.40

Cherry cheesecake £2.05

Polita cafe-bistro

29 Ravenhill Road

Belfast

BT6 8DP

028 9045 7776