One of the things you can never take for granted in Bydgoszcz is the city’s ability to surprise you. From the Prussian majesty of the water tower in Szwederowo (more on that some other time) to the utterly bizarre array of music you can witness at Mózg, it is a very interesting place, for an declining industrial city, struggling to create a new identity for itself.
Anyhoo, yesterday, when a friend demanded that we go somewhere more interesting than the regular chains for a coffee, I had to put my thinking cap on. After a short time, I realised that I had never been to Dworcowa street’s Beyrouth. This is a small, almost unnoticeable coffee shop where they profess to serve Arabian cardamon coffee. I adore this stuff, but I am wary of Polish misrepresentations of cultural phenomena from overseas. Surówka with your Chinese food always puts me off kilter, to some extent. But this was as good an idea as I could come up with, so I made the suggestion and off we went.
When we arrived, I was delighted to see that, not only did they do Arabian coffee, but also baklava, the famed sweet of the Arabian, Ottoman & Greek worlds. Once I had seen this, I discarded my menu, feeling no desire to search for anything else. I ordered and impatiently waited. My friend’s coffee came first and looked good, if unremarkable (she had gone for a regular cafe crema). Imagine then the joy and elation on my face when this showed up:
Best of all, was that it didn’t simply look the business, it tasted fabulous too. The subtlety of the cardamon blending with the strength of the concentrated coffee in the tiny cup. I sat there, grinning like a buffoon as a I destroyed my tasty baklava – firm, sweet and packed with the honey syrup and pistachios you would expect to find on a street corner in Istanbul. All this for only 13 Zloty (that’s £2.50 to you British folk). The service was attentive when required and totally absent when it wasn’t, which made it ideal. Complimentary monkey nuts and an intimate ambience sealed the deal. If you’re in Bydgoszcz and you haven’t been before, get yourself down there and give it a go.
A City Called Bydgoszcz 