That nostalgic sense of abandon. The glamour of it all. There's a buzz off this group of young Poles that suggests that whatever is going on inside Kanal's Polski Klub is going to be worth seeing.

Curiosity got the better of me one time and I went in. It was almost disappointing. Just a long narrow roomful of people drinking and talking in voices loud enough to drown out the two guys on guitars who were singing songs as mournful as any played in the bars of Woodside in the '80s. Undo the dress sense, change the language and that's where you might have been. I don't know what I was expecting but maybe something less familiar than a bar for emigrants.

On the other hand, it's about the cheapest trip abroad you can make. For the price of a beer, an Irish person can become foreign and maybe even interesting, just by entering this Polish enclave. What you might do with that new-found exoticism is up to you.

Kanal is owned by a savvy Irish woman. It opened last year and is aimed very much at Poles living in Dublin. Not that it's unwelcoming to anybody else, but its primary function is clearly to provide a meeting place and a taste of home for the city's large ex-pat community. The menu seems to be basic Polish staples: a variety of soups, a lot of pork, stews and casseroles. Eastern European cuisine tends to get a bad press for an overreliance on a few stock ingredients and a sense that the food is heavy.

Heavier than what we're used to? Heavier than lasagne with chips? And coleslaw? And curry sauce?

Surely not.

The barman/waiter went to some lengths to make us feel welcome, greeting us in English. I'm not sure why it's a disappointment to be so obviously Irish. When he came to take our order we were ready, but he interrupted as we started to speak. Most of the menu was off . . . no pickled herrings or bigos or any of the chicken dishes. Instead a couple of soups, a couple of pork dishes, goulash and grilled trout. This was on a Wednesday so it was unlikely to have been a problem with supplies.

Maybe, I thought, they were cutting down the menu to just the most popular dishes. But a menu without chicken, my companion pointed out, how could that be popular?

We really were not in Ireland anymore.

Anyway, the guy was very apologetic. We made our choices, skipped the Szampan (Polish sparkling wine) which might be great value at 15 a bottle, and ordered instead from the extensive beer list. Goldfish circled in bowls above our heads while we waited. It was quiet enough midweek, a few other tables of eastern Europeans who spoke to the waiter in English. When the door opened, as it did often to facilitate smokers, the temperature dropped to a shade below comfortable.

Probably less of a problem on the karaoke nights.

Zurek, the waiter had explained to us, is a soup made from a base of fermented rye flour.

Fermentation tends not to be something we would associate with food, focusing instead on its potential in other areas.

Maybe we're wrong. This was great, a cloudy light stock with a vinegary freshness enriched with slices of smoked sausage and slices of hardboiled egg. Not unlike Asian hot and sour soups, but without the heat of the chilli. It came with a basket of soft white bread.

Main courses were substantial. Hunter's style pork came in a sauerkraut, tomato and onion sauce with roast potatoes and two colourful salads on the side, pickled red cabbage and a mix of peppers, onions and tomato. It was rich, wholesome home cooking that had the same underlying vinegary-ness that had been present in the soup. Gulasz was strips of beef in a dark, paprikascented sauce. It came with cracked barley, a side order which was similar in texture to wild rice, and the same salads as the pork dish.

You could not describe this food as heavy, instead there was a sharp freshness to everything.

Zywiec and Tyskie were hoppy, strong beers and well suited to food. The bill for this came to just over 40, which for the distance we travelled seemed reasonable.