The night before last, several people connected with the “Ratio” science event repaired to one of the two most famous “local cuisine” (i.e. Bulgarian) restaurants in Sofia: a place called “Under the Linden Tree,” which of course is nearly the name of a famous street in Berlin. Below you can see the restaurant from the outside after it became dark. Built to resemble a traditional Bulgarian home, it’s is on several levels, and entirely paneled in wood on the inside.
To begin, a traditional Bulgarian beer: this is a Stolichno white beer, and though it is made of wheat, it’s darker than American wheat beers. Accompanying it is the traditional Bulgarian hard liquor, rakia. It comes in several flavors (peach, apple, grape, and so on), but this is the traditional one distilled from grapes. It was surprisingly tasty and smooth.
I suppose this is the Bulgarian equivalent of a beer and a shot.
To begin, two heaping platters (for the eight of us) of the most famous Bulgaraian salad, shopska. It’s made with Bulgarian feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other stuff; you can find the recipe here. Delicious!
With the shopska came a heaping plate of various spreads for bread, which you can also eat on their own. They included cucumber/cheese spread, pepper spread, eggplant spread, and another I couldn’t identify. They were all scrumptious:
You can also dunk the bread (delicious, served warm, and made in house) into a dry mixture of various spices, which is supposedly secret. There is salt and cumin, but I couldn’t identify the other flavors. Here’s Vassi showing me how to do it:
There was also shish kebab for the table: chicken and grilled vegetables. The roasted onions were to die for:
Vassi also recommended (at the waiter’s suggestion) a special stewed pork dish with wild mushrooms and potatoes. It was great, but I could barely finish it after chowing down on the bread, spreads, shashleek (shish kebab) and salad:
The dinner was accompanied at intervals by traditional Bulgarian music: a man playing a Bulgarian bagpipe made from goatskin, and accompanied by a wonderful folk singer with an eerie, nasal voice. (I took a film of this and will put it up when I return.
And there were three desserts. First, a cake made with yogurt and fresh peaches:
A Bulgarian equivalent of baklava: crunchy, syrup-covered pastry filled, I was told, with loukom (Turkish delight):
Finally, what is called “dried yogurt with fruit,” which was a very concentrated yogurt (probably left in cheesecloth to let the water drip out) covered with local berries and served in a clay pot (I’ve scraped the berries aside so you can see it). The yogurt was very thick and concentrated, much richer and heavier than the Greek yogurt one buys in the U.S.
Needless to say, the only utterance I could make after this feed was, “Oy, am I full!”
What a dinner!
~
Yummy scrummt🐷
Wow. It ALL looks fabulous.
Jeez. Now I’m REALLY hungry.
“What a dinner.” Indeed! I want to try that heavier, thicker yogurt! Also, that fruit-flavored rakia looks/sounds enticing.
Yeah, I’ve had really thick Greek yogurt so if it’s even thicker than that I’d want to try it!
This looks similar to the “kefir cheese” (also called lebne or labni) that we get from the local Middle Eastern market. It’s very thick and is richer than drained yogurt, since cream is added to the milk.
Wow. Out of all the incredible spreads you’ve been able to enjoy on your trips this one looks to the most delightful. At least to my tastes it does. I would love to try that extra dry yogurt dish.
Wow! You should get a commission from the Bulgarian Tourist Association. Your hobby after you retire should be as a travel writer.
Enchanting place. Almost feels lost in time. What a great place to eat.
well drained yogurt is a wonderful thing.
Serious guy holding kebab skewer is serious.
And yes, superbly roasted onions are a suitable reason to die. Though I think the fresh peach and yogurt cake is another reason to offer oneself up to the non-living realm.
When I drain yogurt it is usually for two days in the fridge and when done has the consistency and fermentation level of soft cheese. Bulgarian yogurt however is in a class of its own.
I wonder if those local berries are dewberries.
Pepper spread looks like it is made from roasted sweet red peppers.
The resto itself is beyond cozy.
Fantastic food and post!!!
It all looks amazing, and has me salivating!
(If any good has come from religion, it is that it has supplied us with some satisfying exclamatory expressions. I avail myself of one here).
Jesus Christ!
(watta meal)
And if you roast or caramelize onions at home the house smells incredibly good ( as do your clothes) for ages. Only trouble is it makes you hungry for ages.
Those of you foodies who overlooked JAC’s remark about the folksinger should google Stefka Sabotinova prituri se planinata and be blown away.
This all looks fabulous, particularly the chicken with mushrooms.
The wife makes up concoctions like this from about equal volumes of творк (tvorok, a.k.a. quark in German-ish, and I’ve forgotten the Polish) and soured cream, with a smidgin of sugar or good amounts of fruit. A bit sweet for my taste, but not the most unhealthy dessert I’ve ever seen.
FWIW, in Pittsburgh, on the other side of Homestead from StayTuned Distillery, mentioned previously, there’s a Bulgarian and Macedonian Social Club aka Educational Center. Apparently the largest such place in the country. There’s also Cajun (alternating with Zydeco) dancing there once a month.
Thanks! (I think.) That all looks SO GOOD! 🙂
My parents used to (perhaps still do) buy a bulgarian red pepper spread that I used to have on egg bread with cheese as a kid. I wonder if that plate of bread sauces illustrates how it would be used.
I’ve seen a lot of Eastern Europeans of various sorts BBQing bushels of red peppers in the public parks around Toronto. I imagine some of this might go into yummy spreads, in addition to just jars of roasted peppers.