Storyline: Vidin to Ruse Bulgaria via Romania by train Jul – Aug, 2017
We like food and we like to indulge once in a while. We like exploring local cuisines and trying new things. We also like wine. Shall I say we are somewhat food and wine junkies (but not snobs – we enjoy good, simply made foods and local wines – we also know our budgetary constraints and are comfortable working within them). Cheers!
Food is very personal. The tastes and diets are as many as the people in the world. We, of course, write about our experiences that fit our tastes. Luckily, Alex and I like the same food. Eh, except for a few little things: tripe soup for Alex and lemon curd for Diana (it is not the lemon it is all the sugar that is flavoured by the lemon I don’t like).
We’ve been visiting Bulgaria during the summer season regularly and enjoying the inexpensive dining in good restaurants. Inexpensive for us paying with Canadian money, that is. At that time of the year there are plenty of fresh, locally sourced fruits and vegetables. A menu in a restaurant usually has a few pages of salads and vegetarian appetisers, including grilled vegetables, mushrooms and a variety of vegetarian dishes. Salads are 400 to 600 grams a portion – enough for a full meal. Add some grilled (bbq) meat and there is a meal to share. There are variety of breads and fresh pastries, yogurts and the famous Bulgarian brined white cheese (a cousin to Greek Feta, but better?). During this trip for example we had dinner for 3 with live (unpasteurized) beer (half a litre each) for €15 (the Bulgarian lev is pinned to the euro and it’s easy to convert to this currency). And the restaurants are full of locals. It is often cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. Things are changing of course, prices are edging up, but this was still valid even during our 2018 trip.
The cuisines of neighbouring Greece, Serbia and Macedonia are very similar we’ve been told by our Serbian neighbours with whom we often exchange dinner evenings.
Since Romania is just north of Bulgaria, we expected a similar assortment of fruits and vegetables in the summer there too. Well, never expect anything and you won’t be disappointed.
July 31, 2017
Day four in Romania. Craiova, Sibiu, Braşov. We find restaurants here quite pricy, yet food lacks quality. Not much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables in the middle of the summer. Salad portions, whenever found, are half of those in Bulgaria for double the price, and are quite uninteresting. Heavy lumpy pastry, often fried and stuffed with cream is sold from the windows of little booths everywhere. Many pubs and pizza places (haven’t tried this yet), but fewer restaurants, some claiming to serve Spanish or Italian menus, but none that we’ve tried are particularly good. Stick to the local/traditional dishes of beans and polenta and where possible order fresh salad is what we’d say. We tried variety of meats a couple of times and were disappointed. Drinks are OK. The live (unpasteurized) Timishoarian beer is really good. One can find good wine too.
Even in Braşov, where we stay in an upscale hotel in a 14th century building with a supposedly good and expensive (prices are not much cheaper than those in Canada) restaurant in the cellar, the selection is heavy on meat and light on veggies.
The bean soup with smoked ham served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread was really good. As far as salads selection – onion salad and cabbage salad were the choices.
And today, we finally had a decent Greek salad, although it wouldn’t compare favourably with the Bulgarian Shopska salad that has similar ingredients, says Alex.
Buffet breakfasts in both hotels in Craiova and Braşov don’t lack diversity, yet the quality is not there. They definitely are not stingy on oil, so eggs come swimming in oil and shrunk to the size of a plum from frying. We liked the buffet in Craiova much more than in Braşov (in Sibiu we stayed in an apartment). Their selection of cheeses was really good, but not so much in Braşov. After trying a sample of every sliced meat, we decided that these are to skip. There is cereal of course, plenty of coffee and tea, croissants, etc., so no one goes hungry. And staff is trying hard with presentation.
Romania is vast agricultural land, but all we see through the train windows is sunflowers (no wonder they are generous with their use of oil), corn, wild plum trees and in one instance a huge greenhouse of tomatoes. No other fruits or vegetables.
Aug 5, Bucharest
After posting on Facebook our disappointment with the food, a Romanian friend from Toronto suggested a few restaurants in Bucharest. It was a great suggestion and sticking to the rule – eat traditional dishes and don’t expect vegetables or to be cheap, we had some good experiences in Bucharest.
We noticed that Romanians drink a lot for socializing but very few eat at restaurants. Maybe that’s why their menus have a page or two of food, followed by ten pages of drinks.
So, what we ate:
In Craiova, we had our first exposure to Romania and its cuisine. After reading menus and raising our eyebrows on prices, we finally settled to a Danish chain with supposedly Spanish cuisine. The only thing Spanish was the sangria, which we loved, maybe because of the extreme heat. The small salad was from hothouse “plastic” vegetables. I ordered bouillabaisse (should have given it a thought – where in the world would fresh sea food come from in Craiova?). It came is a small bowl and consisted of frozen sea food and canned vegetables. A far cry from bouillabaisse. Alex made the mistake of ordering duck (as though we didn’t have enough back home). Two very little pieces, looking and tasting like a well-used leather belt, were chasing each other around his plate, accompanied by another leather-looking piece of what supposed to be mashed potatoes. Did I say no vegetables at all!
We arrived in Sibiu late evening at the finale of a rock festival in the main square. Our hostess recommended a restaurant next door to where we stayed, 500 metres from the centre. Tired and thirsty we ordered light dinner, accompanied by live beer for Alex and a glass of prosecco for me. The beer was really good. So was the wine. We shared a mushroom soup and shrimp salad. Finished with lava cake. All was really good, but we again found the prices on the high side of our expectations.
Next morning, we needed to find breakfast. We walked to the centre without seeing anything on our way, where one could sit. Many small booths, that sold the heavy pastry we’d already tried. No thank you! We reached Big Square with many patios of pubs and restaurants all over, yet most were serving coffee and drinks (alcohol), but no food at this time of the day. The first place we saw food was at a hotel’s restaurant. By then (around 10:30am) I was so hungry, I could chew someone. We chose from a pre-set breakfast menu – omelette with bread, butter and jam. Bread again was clumpy and heavy, and what was supposed to be omelette was a leather sole fried in lots of oil and covered with some kind of cheese.
Lunch was in a traditional Transylvanian restaurant. We ordered soups, wine and beer and ice cream. Much better than the breakfast. We are learning! Well, no vegetables on the menu of course but by this time we did not expect any.
Bucharest is full of restaurants with patios in many pedestrian areas. Thanks to Camelia we dined at “Hanu lui Manuc”. There’s an interesting story behind the “Inn of Manuc”, currently functioning as a huge restaurant. The founder was Armenian, born in Ruse Bulgaria and who later fled to Bucharest. When built “The basement sheltered 15 arched cellars; the ground-floor fostered 23 shops, 2 large halls, 10 warehouses, 16 rooms for servants and cooks and tunnel that could fit 500 people; 107 rooms and lodgings were on the top floor”, according to the menu introduction.
We enjoyed our dinner and beer reading the history of this place and observing the waiters running around the crowds smoking in the main yard. We were happy there was non-smoking outside terrace, since this has been a problem while eating outside here.
We shared a traditional mixed meat and polenta dish and vegetables dish. The food was good, but the grilled vegetable side-dish was limp and somewhat tasteless, the home-brewed unfiltered beer and Timisoareana unpasteurized beer were superb in this heat!
Next day we visited the Beer Hall, another popular place. There was a line-up to enter the restaurant. A very noisy folk group was trying to entertain the numerous tourists. But nothing that resembled folk. All we could hear was noisy screaming every few seconds. Nothing memorable aside from the noise and unhelpful waiters.
We had great experience in the café of the Cărturești Carusel (Carousel of Light) bookstore in a beautifully restored 19th century building. It was more the books (over 10,000) than the café I’d say but the crème brule was good.
The best of all however was a lunch in Taverna Covaci. We shared grilled veggies, traditional polenta/mamaliga, cabbage salad and bean soup.
Mind you, their grilled veggies come just like that. Cut and thrown on the grill without any oil, salt or herbs/spices. They were the same everywhere we tried them – dry and tasteless. Anyway, there was a small pepper with the veggies. I offered it to Alex.
Alex: actually, I offered it to Diana and she told me that I had to eat it. Now, those who know me are aware that even medium-spicy foods cause me to sweat. So I try to keep things on the mild side. Knowing that Romanian peppers are hot, I took a small bite and found it tolerable, so I dug in. Then it hit. It was the hottest thing I’ve tried in my life, by far. My mouth was on fire and I thought I was going to die. While Diana did have a bite, and found it very hot too, I took this one for the team.
We were laughing so hard that the waiter came over to see what was going on. He was more than amused, and a little relieved, I think, that we weren’t upset. All the photos are fuzzy because we could not stop laughing at each other, both burned and sweaty. I couldn’t stand to put anything more into my mouth for about twenty minutes because everything hurt so much.
Then the waiter insisted we must try their special doughnut! …Or did he take advantage of our overheated condition? “It is the best thing” he says. I am not sure how they define it, but for me it was all sugar. Luckily Alex finished it.
All in all, our disappointment with Romanian food was perhaps more due to our uninformed assumptions and expectations. Other than the waiters in the Beer Hall, restaurant staff were friendly and helpful (and to be fair the Beer Hall was huge, so the waiters were on the run and had no time to stop and answer questions). The shortage of vegetables was not appealing to us, but for those who like a lot of meat, this may be your kind of cuisine.
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