Public transport takes you from the Market Square to the Psary Green Gardening Centre in approx. 30 minutes. Your own car needs about half the time. Plants, decorations, ecological products - this is but a fraction what you can but in the shopping centre. We also recommend the local restaurant Zielona. They serve freshly fragrant and spectacularly tasting food that will satisfy both the professed vegetarians and the gourmet carnivores.
The menu of Zielona will surely satisfy a mum who wants to stay slim, a dad who has higher caloric requirements, but does not want his "gluttony" to end with the need for liver medicine, and the kids who are constantly craving for a sweet treat, but need to beware preservatives, artificial colours and the rest of the culinary chemistry. "We believe that each of our clients should be offered a choice" advertise the restaurant's staff. "No sugar beverages? Here you are. Sweetened? That won't be a problem either" we hear from the restaurant staff.
Browsing the menu of Zielona, we were endeared by the declaration: "All dishes are prepared on site, and you can request a change in the composition. Our chef will prepare a dish in line with your expectations." We checked it out personally, and we confirm that the staff of Zielona is certainly is not green at his job, no doubts about that!
Go seasonal - fresh and healthy
Restaurant manager Anna Kolasa is a gardener by profession, so there is no doubt that she knows the list of the seasonal fruits and vegetables, along with their full nutritional value composition, inside out. This is why the menu, the leitmotif of which is, for example, a vegetable, changes in Zielona approx. five times a year on average. The focus is now on strawberries and asparagus - outstanding in taste, if well done - and this is just what we've had at this restaurant. White and green, crunchy and definitely not frozen, neither from no jar pickle! They come from Kąty Wrocławskie, and this stands for a great recommendation for these vegetables. "We order asparagus in the evening and the next morning they are reaped and delivered to us right away" recommends Anna. The guests - among them those who come to Zielona specifically for the asparagus - can eat as much as 60 kg of it on the weekend!
Let's take a look, then, what they can cook of asparagus in Zielona: e.g. the basic version, i.e. green asparagus with browned breadcrums or butter and black sesame seeds (15 PLN); bean soup with potatoes and dill (delicious! - 14 PLN); veal roulade with asparagus and sage sauce served on a rice mix (39 PLN). Please note that the above dishes, and other served in Zielona don't fall into the category of "seek (on the plate), and you shall find!" The portions are robust, even very much so, and thus we recommend gradual sampling of their menu. And for the starter, you need to take one of the vegetable juices, e.g. of asparagus, radishes, lettuce and apples - lo, and behold!
How they do it
It is worth noting that Zielona is not really a "fast-food joint," and the orders, primarily the main dish, require waiting for a while. But this is not a nuisance at all, especially now. Relaxing in the garden restaurant, in comfortable armchairs, surrounded with the green of bushes and flowers, to the accompaniment of the sound of water in a mini fountain can actually tweak the appetite. And then comes tasting the freshly prepared food, straight from the oven, without the microwave. It is made, though, with coconut oil, butter or lard, and the mill from a regional mill (bread and cakes are baked on the spot - and also sold for takeaway, as are the dumplings).
The meat comes to Zielona from the local butcher, and the spices used to enrich the flavour and aroma of the dishes are "manufactured" in traditional dryers, without the chemicals, including sodium glutamate. A number of products which appear in the restaurant's menu is, available just "around the corner" that is, in the section SLOW FOOD of the Gardening Centre.
"We constantly look for new flavours and observe what suits our guests most. With his experience in rustic, meat-based cuisine, our chef uses it well in his author's proposals" says Anna Kolasa. "Also, we have a lady on our staff, who knows all about spicing up vegan and vegetarian dishes, because it's not such a simple task as it seems" adds the manager of Zielona.
Hats off to the restaurant for remembering about people who can not (or will not) eat gluten (they will be served, e.g millet groats instead of pearl barley, or rice instead of pasta). Many dishes from the menu are tasty proposals specifically for the celiacs. And the dishes that can possibly include even trace quantities of vegetable proteins are appropriately labelled in the menu.
Restaurant Zielona, ul. Główna 1C, Wroclaw Psary, website: www.restauracja-zielona.pl
