Bucharest and Sofia

[ingbakko]

Hy, I will be travelling in Bucarest and in Sofia next week, i will appreciate any good suggestion ... Thanks a lot

[ingbakko]

Hy, I will be travelling in Bucarest and in Sofia next week, i will appreciate any good suggestion ... Thanks a lot

←

I replay myself, I am now in Bucarest and leaving to Sofia. I did try two restaurants, both of them Italian cusine inspired.

The first name is "AQUARIUM" fish restaurants, elegant for new rich and expats, I had a "Risotto nero di Seppia" very well prepared the cooking of rice and of the fish were perfect, and it's very easy to overtime rice (making it too soft) or overtime the fish making it hard to chew. Then I had a Seabass "al sale" very fresh also if the fish was not wild and so a bit "chicken" flavoured.

The second place was named "Zaphiro's" or something similar, goog food and wines elegant place a bit too expensive nothing of really remarkable.

Bye

next post from Sofia

[albiston]

ignobakko,

first of all let me welcome you warmly to the eGullet's society. I have to admit your post tickled my curiosity. When I'm abroad I'm deeply curious about local dishes and I very seldom eat Italian. You seem to be doing exactly the opposite and so I was wondering if there's a particular reason for this.

Ciao!

[ingbakko]

ignobakko,

first of all let me welcome you warmly to the eGullet's society. I have to admit your post tickled my curiosity. When I'm abroad I'm deeply curious about local dishes and I very seldom eat Italian. You seem to be doing exactly the opposite and so I was wondering if there's a particular reason for this.

Ciao!

←

Thans a lot for the welcome. I do travel for business, I represent an Italian company, and my customers normally like to bring me to so called Italian restaurants (they believe we do not survive without eating pasta more then two days) .

Actually expecially in east europe, Italian cusine and restaurants, are now sinonimus of high quality, elegance and good food .... also thanks to the new culture our young chefs are exporting around the world. At least when people talks about Italian cusine it's clear what you are going to eat, try to ask anyone in Bucarest about french cusine....

I look for good quality food, good wines, good service ... in many part of the world this is equivalent to Italian restaurants (expecially where you have a large italian community of expats like in Romania).

But it's not a rule I am just back from Sofia and I ate Italian only one... I had no really remarkable culinary experiences but I didi try some excellent wines. "NO MAN'S LAND" 2002 a blend (cuveè) of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from south Bulgaria was really very good. I bought for my cave a bottle of "UNIQATO" 2001 same winery but an 100% local variety of grape .. soon I will tell you about this wine.

By the way in Sofia I suggest MAXI'S: local food in a nice new complex and if you want Italian "La CAPANNINA" just close to Radisson Hotel.

Ciao

next week I will be in Prague and Brno ... suggestions?

[marlena spieler]

I'm soooooo glad you liked NO MANS LAND wine, about a decade ago I was taken by the owner down to his vineyard right on the border between bulgaria and macedonia. He said: I call my wine NO MANS WINE because it is here, in no mans land (and it was, the soldiers of both sides were right there, focuing their rifles right at us!).

i'm thinking that things are calmer now (that was during the war in the former yugoslavia), and i'm so glad that the wine is as good now as it had promise to be those years ago.

its from the very south of bulgaria, near a monestary that used to take in paying guests as a sort of hotel, i forget the name. in the rila mountains somewhere, and not far from the big monestary there, maybe an hours drive.

the fellow who owned no mans land wine was really full of good vibes and energy, and i'm pleased to hear of his success!

ciao, for now,

Marlena

[ingbakko]

Hy, NO MAN'S LAND was really good, but I have been told UNIQATO is still better. Nowadays this winery is well known in Bulgaria (I bought this wine in my hotel in Sofia), I don't know if the winery is still owned by the same people of ten years ago, in Bulgaria now the most of the wineries are Italian or French money. They still need to find a quality constancy, but the wines I did try were excellent.

Ciao

[Hodad]

This is a bit out of the way but I was in Brasov last summer and found the food excellent. There were some excentricities (pizza shaped like a Mickey Mouse head w/eggs for eyes and green peas) but for the most part the food was wonderful. There is a market in the center of town with beautiful produce which is mind bogglingly cheap. A kilo of fingerling potatoes for $0.25, cherries for $1.00, stuff like that. The best restaurant we ate in was away from the center of town and it's called Roata Noroculli, which roughly translates as "Wheel of Fortune". I sampled the more traditional fare of a spicy tripe soup and roebuck.

If you ever find yourself in Brasov do check it out.

[Jordan Mendenhall]

for anyone looking at this thread in the future, it's worth mentioning that Sofia, Bulgaria is an amazingly cosmopolitan as well as inexpensive city to dine in. Yes, italian restaurants may be a sign of quality food in not so well off nations in the Balkans, but Bulgarian cuisine can match the best of the Italian tradition some of its hearty dishes.

In Sofia, there is a wonderful restaurant near the top of ul. Angel Kanchev called 'Ms. Caprice' that has a varied and affordable menu. I had stuffed potatoes with cheese, ham and mushrooms for only $3 and proved to be a filling lunch. The restaurant also has a lunch menu, from which you can choose a soup/salad, main, and a beer/drink. Definitely worth checking out for some non-standard Bulgarian food.

For a more traditional place, I would recommend 'Divaka' on ul. Gladstone. It is open 24 hrs and serves all types of meat, veg, and soup dishes. The meals are huge (like at most Bulg. restaurants) and is popular with locals. Come for lunch or early/late evening as the place fills during the dinner rush and it's nearly impossible to get a seat.

[grendelyn]

We were only in Sofia for one night a few weeks ago and went to Pri Yfata, as I have a friend who swears by it. The service could have been better but the rabbit in clay pot was amazing and the baked farmers cheese was life changing. Many locals and locals bringing foreigners along. We really enjoyed it.

[albiston]

Jordan and grendelyn,

let me first of all welcome you to the eGullet forums, nice to see new faces around.

You both seem to have at least some (and possibly more) experience with Bulgarian cuisine, so I was wondering if there are any typical dishes that should not be missed. Apart the rabbit and the baked cheese, that is . Those sound great.

[grendelyn]

Well, I am no expert on Bulgarian cuisine, but it is generally typically balkan. That means all sorts of street food, lots of Kofte and Cevabcici kind of things, all of which I think is absolutely wonderful. Lots and lots of meat: vegetarians need not apply, I would think.

(Hope it's ok to post photos here... others seem to do it...)

Wandering around the markets in Sofia is a wonderful experience, stop at the little stalls for various meat dishes. No one speaks english really, but pointing should get you far enough.

Otherwise, it's all about the wine. Lots of wine bars, etc. I wish we'd had more time.

One word of warning -- all the wonderful looking ice cream on the street is (to my palate) AWFUL! It looks so fancy and nice, but the base tastes like banana. Not to my liking at all...

[Jordan Mendenhall]

Thanks for the pictures, as they reflect a typical walk down the streets in most of the cities I've been in: fresh food markets and ice cream stands. Though I don't think the bananas are exactly grown in Bulgaria

As stated above, the cuisine is typically Balkan, a bit heavy a times, especially because things are served in huge portions at most traditional Bulgarian restaurants. Case in point is a restaurant I went to in Veliko Tarnovo the other day: There were two menus, one for Bulgarian dishes and one for pizza and pasta. Both menus ran at least six pages each. Pizza is the second side to Bulgarian food and I think probably makes up almost as much as the diet here as the traditional food.

I've seen things served in several different ways. Grilled meats take up a large part of a menu. They can come skewered, plated on their own, or in other various forms. Usually quite simple and delicious.

There are also dishes served in clay pots, that are heated (I don't know how) on a little stand underneath. These can contain what looks like stews, though some are a bit thicker than most stews I've seen and typically come with a plate to have the food ladled from bowl to plate. Also, because the pot retains so much heat, the contents in the bottom of it can be extremely hot, so this will help them cool off.

Also, there are casserole-looking things, that I think are typically labeled as zapenkas. I had one the other day that had a meat sauce of some sort, with beef tongue, beef filet, and potatoes, with cheese baked over top. My friend had a similar dish the other night with chicken, broccoli, and cheese. Word of warning: the cheese used will either be what I think is a feta, but they just call it 'white cheese' here and can completely take over a dish. I like feta, but used sparingly. My friend had a bit of trouble finished off the aforementioned dish as the feta was too much and too overpowering.

Some really popular small dishes that I'm sure you can find a recipe for on the web are tarator, which is a cold yogurt and cucumber soup, and the banitsa, cheese fried in filo pastry that people eat in the mornings.

Here's a recipe for a typical dish called mish-mash that my friend really enjoyed:

Mish Mash

Something very simple, cheap and very tasty. Try it and you will see!

Ingredients:

8 eggs

2-3 tomatoes or 300 g tomato puree

10 fresh capsicums or 500 g roasted and pilled off red paprika

salt, oil

Preparation:

Fry the capsicums (paprika) for about 10 minutes in a pan, then add the tomatoes (tomato puree) and fry until the tomato juice evaporates. At the end add the eggs and fry lightly.

That's all and takes no longer than 20 minutes.

Hope that helps a bit, I'll be here for another couple days so will try and be a bit more thorough in documenting what goes into ye ole belly.

-JM