restaurant review - eva's chip wagon -- and an odd coincidence

Really, a chip wagon, but the food is far beyond a chip wagon.

So, tonight the boy had training at Ray's Reptiles tonight. We decided that we would eat out to save some time. There is a chip wagon that is open along the way. It is Eva's Chip Wagon.

We had been there a few times before and really enjoyed it. Their cabbage rolls are huge and the wife loves them. I have always enjoyed whatever I ate there, as well as the boy.

They have several Polish type items on the menu, but always assumed they were Ukrainian by the spelling of the proprietor's name on the sign. However, I was perusing their website ans saw an item called the "Polish Burger"?

I decided to ask them about it as it was not on the day's menu when we turned up. They began to explain it as ground beef and pork shaped in to a patty and fried. "Oh," I said, "like a kotlet." They kind of looked at me with a bit of a surprise. I said I was Polish, but my spoken Polish is lousy as I have few opportunities to speak it now-a-days. They were like: Well you said it right.

We bantered back and forth for a few minutes and I told them where my parents were from. Well, the co-proprietor, Eva's husband, is actually from the same place my father was. What a tiny world it really is! I have never met anyone else from there except my dad's family. My one aunt and uncle specifically, who, as my father, have left this world.

I was astounded. He tells me his brother-in-law, who is actually Ukrainian, as it has always been a mixed region, is from there as well and still lives there. (My old man's home town has been in Ukraine since the end of the Second World War. That is why he never went back. He despised Communism, particularly the Russian Soviet type.) He said he is visiting this summer and I should talk to him; he knows everyone in the area. I will, as I had one aunt who stayed behind and had been married off to a Ukrainian Army officer. Hell, maybe we are related somehow in the end?!

Back to the meal. The boy got a burger and fries, the wife "pierogi poutine". Yup, you heard right. This is when multiculturalism can do some nutty things! I got a pork schnitzel burger. Which is really just a different kind of kotlet, or cutlet.

The pierogi poutine was dynamite, the wife could not finish it, so now she has a lunch. The boy loved his burger, all gone. My schnitzel? Massive, twice the size of a burger, and as Homer Simpson would say: Fan-Fugu-Tastic! And, yes, I finished it all. I also got fries, which he wife ate a chunk of. The best fries I have ever had at a chip wagon or chip stand, probably anywhere.

Oh yeah, I also had a leek soup. Very rustic (see article here, but I would not really call it peasant food) and down-home, like my mother, or I, would make it.

Now, they use peanut oil. I think that is why their fries are to die for. So, if you have a "nut thing", you have been warned. If not, run, drive, parachute in. You must try them. Time is limited for the season. They close up for the winter by Christmas, or sooner if the weather turns nasty. I did see them open once, some time ago, during a blizzard. So, who knows. Call them if you are not sure, the number is on their website. They also have a Facebook page.

While they were preparing our meals we took up the banter again. I asked if they made some particular Polish soups. Not really for the customers as most people are not familiar with them. However, the husband said Eva made them for him. Lucky guy!

The wife also put in an order for cabbage rolls to take home and make some lunches for work. I told you she loves them.

So, with the four meals, fries, soup, some drinks, it came to $40. Considering we were filled and fuelled up with food to take home (cabbage rolls and some pierogi), a really sweet deal. We more than got our money's worth tonight. A pizza from the  local shop would have cost about the same and there might be one slice left for a lunch for the boy. A couple of happy Polaks (really, the boy is half Slav and half Celt; two of the most downtrodden peoples in the western world) and an Irish woman were the result of the evening's dining, let me tell you! 

Thanks Ewa (the real spelling of her name) and Gienek!! I also look forward to meeting the brother-in-law; it may lead to some blanks in my family history being filled in. Who knows? blbbl