Taverna Sarbului is one of those rare gems in a modern city. Bucharest likes its local cuisine, and, like in any Latin country, you’ll also find here a number of Italian restaurants. Although not rare in Romania (Serbians are still a minority in Transylvania), Serbian cuisine is not a usual occurrence. Taverna Sarbului does it flawlessly. The atmosphere is old-time Serbian, the food prepared with the freshest ingredients, respecting traditional recipes. The restaurant also serves slibovitz, a plum brandy specific to Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia among others.

Contact details:

Address: 31 Tipografilor Str
Phone: +40 21 490 60 50
Website: www.tavernasarbului.ro

Click on the pictures for more information about the restaurant, its menu and other important details.

Taverna Sarbului also has locations outside Bucharest, in Sinaia and Brasov.

Taverna Sarbului [Photos] is a post from: Rounite

Caru’ cu Bere is one of the oldest restaurants in Bucharest, in fact it is the city’s oldest brewery. It was opened in 1879 in the old Zlatari inn and moved to Stavropoleos Street (its current location) twenty years later. The food lacks the quality it once had, but the house beer is still good and the atmosphere is well worthy of a visit. Expect to find the place crowded at all times, travelers come here to experience the old Bucharest vibe, evident in the beer house’s architecture, and reflected by some elements of interior design like mural paintings, stained glass and carved cross-beams. The wine cellar is a must.

Contact details:

Address: Strada Stavropoleos 5
Phone: +40 21 315 7663
Website: http://www.carucubere.ro/
Email: (on site) http://www.carucubere.ro/en/contact

Caru’ cu Bere [Photos] is a post from: Rounite

Aside “sarmale” and “mititei”, the dish known as “Ciorbă de burtă” (tripe sour soup or “gut soup” as others may call it) is the closest thing to a “national dish” you can get in Romania.

The “ciorba” can be ordered in almost all restaurants with national specific, but the best you can get is “home made” with a recipe that varies from household to household (the variations are small though, for example I prefer adding 1 celeriac and some garlic for taste, while in other households these ingredients are completely ignored).

Fortunately in Germany I can buy tripe that is already washed and ready to cook, so my recipe is based on such an ingredient. For regions where such an ingredient is missing, just ask the local butcher to give you fresh tripe, cleaned and bleached if possible. He’ll probably give you a funny look and if he doesn’t clean it and bleach it, you will have to go through a lot of trouble to clean the fresh tripe, but the end result is well worth it.

Fresh tripe needs to be boiled with salt for 4-5 hours, then strain and cut julienne (keep the broth).

Below the ingredients for a tripe sour soup as I cook it:

• 1 kg tripe (prepared as described above),
• 1 leg Veal or other pieces of Veal,
• 2-3 carrots,
• 1 parsnip,
• 1 celeriac,
• 2 whole onions (peeled),
• pepper for taste,
• garlic for taste
• 2 egg yolks,
• 1 pickled pepper (for taste)
• vinegar for taste
• 200g sour cream

With the carrots, onions, parsnip and celeriac (add black pepper for taste) make a vegetable broth. Mix with the tripe broth, add julienne-cut tripe, and boil till the broth is evaporated by half. Remove from stove.

Mince garlic, and mix well with sour cream and two egg yolks. Add the mixture the the soup, stirring continuously. Add some vinegar (add and taste), and 1-2 pickled red-peppers (Capsicum) cut julienne for taste. Serve hot, with more garlic, a spicy chilly pepper and sour cream if you wish.

A Romanian Favorite: Tripe Sour Soup (Ciorbă de burtă) is a post from: Rounite

Yesterday, in my post about Lazarus’ Saturday (April 11, 2009) I mentioned a special dish, used to celebrate the dead: coliva.

Coliva is the Romanian translation of the Greek κόλλυβα (kólliva) and it describes a sweet pudding made of boiled wheat.

This “desert” is used liturgically in both Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches. Romania and Greece are not the only two countries that use this culinary delight to celebrate their dead. Variations can be found in Serbia, Russia and Bulgaria too.

Bellow a Romanian recipe, which, unlike the Greek kólliva which contains sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, pomegranates seeds and anise seeds, is much simpler. The reason is that in Romania, many of the ingredients mentioned above are neither traditional, nor affordable for people of the folk.

Ingredients: 1 kg wheat kernel, 250 g sugar, 150 g honey, water to cover the kernels, 240 g crushed walnuts, crunched graham crackers as needed, powdered sugar as needed, vanilla, fine zest from 1 lemon, fine zest from 1 orange, colored candy, 100 g milk chocolate grinded fine or cocoa powder.

Since coliva is a ritual dish, its preparation follows a ritual too. The day before the liturgy prepare the wheat as follows:

Wash the wheat kernel with nine waters (one for each of the 9 angel squads in heaven) then boil in a Teflon pot for 2-3 hours at medium heat. Stir thoughtfully with a wooden spoon to prevent the wheat from sticking to the bottom of the pot. When boiled, put content into an enameled pot and covered with a wet towel, so that the composition won’t form a “crust.”

The day of the liturgy:

Sweeten the composition with 250 g sugar and 150 g honey. Flavor with zest from one lemon and one orange and with 1 TBS vanilla.

Add 200 g of the crushed walnuts and stir till all these extra ingredients incorporate in the wheat composition evenly. Your coliva is now almost ready – all it needs is the décor that will make it fit for the liturgy.

Place the composition on a large platter and form the coliva with your hands, respecting its shape – make sure you even the coliva to look like a cake. Coliva can take any form: rectangular, oval or round, and sometimes even “cross.” With the rest of the crushed walnuts and crushed graham crackers cover the coliva on the top and the sides. Add powder sugar and then make your ornaments out of chocolate and candy. You can even use half walnuts to form a cross or to ornate the sides of the coliva.

I hope the images posted give you some ideas on how to ornate this dish. Coliva is very delicious, and many people choose to eat it in other occasions that those related to death. If you want to do so, simply skip the shaping and decorating.

I had to update this to correct a misspelling (emailed instead of enameled, thank you, Pearl) and to add this sweet video I found on YouTube)

Romanian Coliva Recipe is a post from: Rounite

A feast of lights and joyfulness – this is how I remember my Christmases in Romania. The Christmas tree was a “must have” in my family – I’ve never spent one single Christmas without it. Romanian carols, although sober and quite religious, were magic.

I miss Christmas. It’s not that I don’t enjoy Christmas in Germany as well – I do, after all my family is here, and there’s nothing more important than having your family around you all the time. Yet something is missing. The children caroling with the star, gathering with friends and caroling on Christmas Eve, the food… wonderful, glorious food that makes my mouth water only when I think about it.

Kerry Kubilius of Guide to Eastern Europe Travel asked me, in a private email, to publish more recipes. Looking at this blog I realized that while traditions and attractions are quite rich (as rich as they can be in a blog with, so far, only 33 entries) food and drinks has only 2 entries and both are about… drinks.

Since Christmas is a special holiday and the food is special too, what better opportunity for a few new recipes? Besides, what better way to accept the Christmas Cheer Challenge initiated by Sue, than giving you a “secret” recipe?

Sarmale (pickled cabbage rolls) is one of my favorite dishes. It’s not exclusive for Christmas – all major holidays and celebrations (except Easter) offer a good reason for cooking sarmale. But since Christmas is the time when pork meat is particularly fresh (short before Christmas the pigs are slaughtered), Christmas sarmale are the tastiest.

For sarmale you need one large pickled cabbage, 1kg ground meat (pork), 2 large onions (finely chopped), 50 grams rice, lard, 5 tomatoes (or a can of pealed tomatoes – I do not recommend ready-made tomato sauce), four-five slices of smoked bacon, salt, pepper, water.

Fry the onion in lard till it gets gold brown, then mix it in a bowl with the meat, rice, salt and pepper. Caution with the salt: sour cabbage is already salty and too much salt in the meat mixture could ruin your meal. Carefully remove the cabbage leaves one by one, paying attention not to tear them. Depending on how big your cabbage is you need whole leaves or halves to make the rolls. Remove cabbage core – it is hard to roll the meat mixture if you don’t.

In a deep pot place the rolls in concentric layers. Cover with a layer of chopped cabbage, then pour the tomatoes (chopped as well). Place one-two bacon slices randomly among the rolls. The bacon will give a special taste and aroma to the whole dish. Repeat this till all rolls are set in the pot. The last layer is whole cabbage leaves and tomatoes. Add water to slightly cover the last layer of cabbage. Place on stove, bring to boil, and then reduce heat to low and continue boiling for at least four hours. Serve hot, with polenta and sour cream.

Another great sarmale recipe you find here

Christmas Cuisine – Sarmale Recipe is a post from: Rounite

Socata (Elderflower Cordial) is a popular drink in Romania, so popular that it even inspired the creation of a new type of Fanta. Have you ever tasted Fanta Shokata? Well… it’s not as yummy as the Romanian beverage that inspired it, but it can give you a fair idea of what elderflower cordial tastes like in my country.

The flowers used to prepare the cordial come from Sambucus nigra – a species of elder native to Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia.

There’s nothing better than homemade elderflower cordial, but this is far from being an easy recipe, especially if you don’t know that the leaves and branches of the elder plant are poisonous for internal use, and so are its fruits if they are not fully ripe.

Even the seeds of the elderberries are poisonous and should be removed before consuming. You might say Romanians like to live dangerously… well, there is actually no danger in consuming Socata – the flowers are perfectly safe to consume and they can be even used to prepare herbal teas.

The flowers contain pectin; sugars; triterpenes (a class of hydrocarbons); flavonoids like rutin, quercetin and kampherol; and oils.

Infused in hot water, for 10 to 15 minutes, the flowers make a tea that helps reducing respiratory catarrh. The infusion induces sweat, meaning that it can be effectively used to treat fever and infection. If you didn’t know it by now, the herbal medicine Sinupret contains elder flowers – proving once more their efficacy in treating bronchitis and reducing congestion without side effects.

A milder elderflower infusion can be used as an eye wash in conjunctivitis. Naturist treatment of rheumatic problems, herpes simplex, ear infections, constipation and other problems affecting the immune system also use elderflowers. Treatment of acne, eczema and psoriasis employs elderflower infusion quite often due to the astringent properties of the flowers – the Egyptians even used the flowers to heal burns.

As you see, the many healing properties of the plant make it a perfect candidate for naturist medicine, but in Romania we simply consume the cordial because it is tasty. In the end it doesn’t matter why you drink it as long as you enjoy it.

And here is the recipe, as I remember it from my grandma:

• 10-12 big elderflowers, fully blossomed
• 1 kg sugar
• 5 big lemons
• 150 g sugar to make caramel syrup
• 8 liters cold water
• 1 tbs leaven

Prepare a caramel syrup from the 150 g sugar: poor sugar into a small pan, set over a quick fire and stir constantly while the sugar melts and changes to a light brown liquid. Then add one cup warm water and stir till the caramel dissolves.

Boil 3 liters of water with 1 kg sugar and the juice from one lemon for 15 minutes. When the mixture is lukewarm poor it into a 10 l glass jar and mix it with the remaining 5 liters of water, the caramel syrup, the elderflowers and the juice from the rest of the lemons (you could use sliced lemons instead, but they’ll get a bitter taste if you forget them in the infusion more than a day). Add leaven and cover the jar with clean gauze. Let the flowers infuse for 3-6 days, but stir the beverage twice a day and taste occasionally.

The drink is non alcoholic in the first 2-3 days or it can become a mild alcoholic drink in 3-5 day (the reason why the drink is also known as elder wine). If you don’t want to consume it in its alcoholic form, don’t wait longer than 3 days to strain the content of the jar through clean muslin and bottle it. Store it in the fridge.

Cold Fanta Shokata will remind you of the taste of the original Socata beverage, but it’s really not the same thing and it has no health benefits (the flavor is not even natural).

Elderflower Cordial – More than a Refreshing Beverage is a post from: Rounite

Somewhere in Dobrudja, just off the Black Sea, the land of Murfatlar stretches out under the blue Romanian skies with its endless vineyards.

Dionysus himself was once dancing on these hills, blessing the wines with his magical touch. Murfatlar’s wines have been loved ever since and today they are some of the most popular in Romania and abroad.

The sun shines most of the year in Dobrudja and the Black Sea breeze carries fresh aromas over the land and enough moisture to nourish the grapes and to give that unique Murfatlar bouquet that won so many international prizes for all the wine producers in the region. You’ve never tasted paradise if you didn’t taste a Romanian home-made wine. When in Dobrudja do buy a bottle or two from a private winery.

Murfatlar’s best wines are sweet wines, particularly due to the high level of sugars present in the grapes in this region. However, if you fancy dry wines, you will not be disappointed. Representative wines from the region are Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. Merlot and Black Feteasca are quite popular as well, but remember that the sugar level in the grapes is quite high, so the taste might be sweeter than you expect, even in the “dry” wines if you don’t buy from a certified producer.

These are: Murfatlar, Medgidia and Cernavoda. From the three, Murfatlar (the brand that carries the name of the region) is the most popular and also the one with the most international prizes.

Lacrima lui Ovidiu for example is a range of special fortified wines produced after a traditional recipe inspired by the wines of Porto, Malaga, Madeira or Xeres. These wines are unique in Romania and they’ve also managed to win international prizes in time.

In 2006 Murfatlar won the golden medal for its Murfatlar Trei Hectare 2003 Chardonnay at the most important international wine contest: Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. The same year the company won 11 other medals in important competitions. In France at Chardonnay du Monde, Murfatlar won the bronze medal for its 2004 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay Legacy. The company won over 140 medals since 2001 and it’s also the first Romanian wine company ISO 9001:2001 certified.

Murfatlar, the Land of Dionysus is a post from: Rounite