Dinig Out: Polish gem on Fresh Pond Road quite special

By Carol Brock

Bona Restaurant

71-24 Fresh Pond Road
Ridgewood
718-386-4400

Agreed: We all need a good little neighborhood restaurant. And if you live in Ridgewood, there’s Bona. Just last summer it opened on Fresh Pond Road on the corner of Myrtle. Mario was going to have a fast-food place, but it evolved into a little Polish gem.

There are just 10 tables seating 40. Sixteen dollar bills are taped to the wall and two long-stemmed, fresh pink roses are in a glass vase on the short serving counter. A cooler with Polish beers has snowflakes dangling from its glass door.

The waitresses — one tall, slim and dark in a tailored black pants suit and one tall, slim and blonde in a white skirt and white sweater — could have been moonlighting from modeling jobs. The chef, Jurbk, has had 20 years of restaurant experience in Poland in Bialystok, the same town Mario comes from. It’s Mario’s first venture.

Having said all that about neighborhood restaurants, we settled into one of the two candle-lit tables. A 6-year-old having dinner with her family came bouncing up and asked, “Don’t I know you?” And, yes she did. We all had traveled 10 miles from home to Bona. (My guest hopes to vacation in Poland, so this was a little closer.)

Given that men seem to love soup for a first course, Bona is the place to be: beef barley; borscht, several ways (white, Ukrainian, red with meat blintzes); chicken noodle; pea; bean; cauliflower and tomato. For taste daredevils there’s sauerkraut, pickle, beef tripe and fruit soup. As you may have surmised there is one appetizer, and it’s soup.

Polish cuisine is spiced with herbs, dill, caraway and green parsley. There is a tradition in Poland of growing herbs in every home garden. And sour cream is an important ingredient in soups and sauces. My dining companion’s pea soup was broth-like, studded with potato cubes. My mushroom was slightly thicker, with mushroom shavings and snippets of parsley and loaded with curly egg noodles that added a delightful texture.

The salad was a triple taste treat — a three-in-one mixed order of salad. It is not to be missed and comes with the meal — cole slaw, beet with horseradish and another sauerkraut or green pepper, for instance. They are grated finely and set side by side.

She could not pass up the pierogies. Five kinds are offered: meat, cheese and potato, sauerkraut and mushroom, sweet cheese and blueberry. The sweet cheese comes with sour cream and a dab of fruit. Savory ones have sauteed onions, if you choose. And pierogies come boiled or fried.

The chef specials offered temptation after temptation for me: stuffed meatloaf, pork chop with prune, stuffed cabbage, fried kielbasi, hunters stew, potato pancakes, Hungarian pancakes filled with beef goulash, potato dumplings and lima bean stew. I took the easy way out and settled for the Polish plate with stuffed cabbage, kielbasi and potato pierogies. It was home-cooked comfort food.

But then I couldn’t resist new-to-me potato babka. I guess potato babka is to the Polish what noodle pudding is to the Jewish. It’s mashed potatoes flecked with parsley and dotted with sausage baked in a shallow rectangular pan, then cut into inch strips to be served with a delicious mushroom sauce. I loved it and even more the next day, cold and in squares.

And now for dessert. Just when I thought another cheesecake might not thrill, I tried Polish cheesecake. It is something else, made with ricotta, grated farmer or cottage cheese. At Bona, it’s a square about an inch high and chock full of raisins, moist and marvelous.

I wish I had tried the apple cake, too. The Polish cookbook I checked instructed to pour the batter into a springform pan and top with sliced apples. Sounds good to me.

Incidentally, little Renee across the way had blintzes. There are cheese, blueberry, cherry, strawberry, apple and peach, gussied up with cream and fruit and chocolate sauce. Her father’s rice pudding was served in a dish the size of a soup bowl and similarly adorned.

Not only is the cuisine at Bona delicious, but the prices are delightful. And that’s part of the charm of a neighborhood restaurant.

Mario, “Dziekuje.” Thanks for going Polish. It’s the crossroad between East and West, between Northern Scandinavia and Southern Italy. Merchants from the Middle East traded their spices for amber from the Baltic. Intermarriages with the French added flair. At Bona (meaning “special”) taste the result.

The Bottom Line

A small neighborhood restaurant. Delightful blonde and brunet service. Fine Polish cuisine. Very reasonable prices.

Chef’s Choice

White Borscht Soup…$2.35

Beef Tripe Soup…$3.35

Chicken Roll-upe…$7.95

Pork Chops with Plums…$6.50

Hungarian Pancakes (beef goulash in potato pancake)…$6.95

Polish Plate…$6.95

Veal Cutlet…$6.95

Chicken Cutlet…$6.50

Pork Chop…$6.00