Steve's Family Dining II - Good Polish Food?

If you have read some of the other posts here you may note that it is my belief that packed parking lots mean good food. So as I have driven down Middlebelt in Livonia I always noticed a little mom and pop type restaurant that had a pretty packed lot.

At first I dismissed the place because of the type of cuisine mentioned on the sign out front: Polish. My mouth doesn't water at the mention of "Polish food". I am thinking that unless you are polish, your mouth doesn't water either. Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed a pirogi or two in the past. But the words "Polish food" never held the magic power of words like say..."Italian food" as far as I was concerned. That was until Steve's Family Dining II. I believe this is their second restaurant. The original is somewhere on Plymouth Rd in Livonia. But I aint been there. So we'll just focus on this one.

We came in and the first thing I noticed was the place was clean and updated. I guess it should be since they opened in 2006. The staff were friendly and competent throughout the visit. We asked what was popular. The waitress said the polish sampler plate was the most popular. So that is what we ordered. The sampler comes with your choice of stuffed cabbage or city chicken PLUS kielbasa, sauerkraut, 3 pirogies (again, your choice: cheese, potato, sauerkraut), and rice. All for the price of....wait for it.... wait for it......... ...... $6.95

We also ordered soup. We had the chicken noodle soup. It was okay. Not great, not bad. Word is the dill soup is good. Warning next few words are kinda gross. Ok, remember how this is a polish restaurant? And remember how if you are polish you might like Czernina, or Duck Blood Soup, a Polish soup made of duck blood and clear poultry broth? Yeah, they got that too. It just aint on the menu. Say the secret password "Czernina" (Czar NEE na) to get it. For 50 cents (with a dinner) you can get a "small" soup or for a $1.50 you can get a large soup. I figured small was like the chinese tea cup size bowls some places give you since it was only $0.50. So I ordered a large, my better half ordered a small. Stick with the small. The large was freking huge. Picture dinner plate size bowl. Small was more like a normal/large bowl, more then enough. So our food comes out and the large plate is packed with food. The kielbasa was the best. After a bad 4 day childhood camping trip where we lost all food but the kielbasa and ate it cold for 3 days, I have never been a big fan of kielbasa. But this was good kielbasa. Way better then that Hillshire farm stuff. Really everything was good. Since we both ordered the same thing one of us got city chicken and one of us got stuffed cabbage and we shared. We didn't get any sauerkraut pirogies. Just cheese and potato. I like the potato she liked the cheese. After all that good food, we had to try the carrot cake for $2 and change. Just about every restaurant you go to now a days overprices the desserts to $5-7. So I figured at $2 I couldn't go wrong. And no I did not go wrong. It was very good, nice size piece, lots of nuts - yum. So all in all, a wonderful experience. The food was very good, the prices were unbelievably low, and service was just great. We will be back, often.

So if you go, and I encourage you to go:

Steve's Family Dining

15800 Middlebelt Rd Livonia, MI 48154

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