Sofia, Bulgaria – a culinarian sencation

May 11, 2006
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In my last post about the stay in Sofia, Bulgaria, I promised to tell you about the culinary sensation on Saturday evening. Let me first admit that I am not a food specialist, but I really appreciate a good meal, especially when it’s presenting other countries culture, habit and food tradition. This time we really got it all. The restaurant was nicely placed high up in the mountain with a lovely view of Sofia. It was an old building stone building and with a wonderful Bulgarian atmosphere. It was nicely decorated with farming equipment and I especially noticed a wooden rack that they made cheese in the good old days. The staff was dressed in Bulgarian traditional clothing, very colourful and nice. It reminds me a bit of the Norwegian national suites.

I’ve captured a bit from their website and that should give you an idea. Click here to take a closer look!

We where served a 6 course dinner with excellent wine and rakia (plum/grape brandy). It was just heavenly and served by the staff in a nice, bright and efficient way. You could really tell they where proud showing us the best from a traditional Bulgarian kitchen. This day it was special since they where celebrating St. Gerorge day too. I had my mobile phone camera ready of course and I knew my wife would love to hear and see it in all detail. Even if the quality is moderate, I’ll gladly share them with you:

Starter No 1 to the left: Shopska salad with cucumber, tomatoes etc. covered with feta cheese and then Pastarma; dry, raw beef meet.
Starter No 2 to the right: Zucchini covered with garlic mixed yoghurt.

Main course: Lamb prepared in St. George’s Day style
To the right: A “rest” course” with buffalo cheese and Bulgarian yellow cheese


Dessert to the left: Banitsa cake with cream
Dessert to the right: Sour yoghurt with honey and walnuts
What made the evening even more memorable was the performance of folk music and dancing. A lot of musicians and dancers where performing proudly in their very best way. It was just breath taking and you really were reminded that you where in a culture rich European country. The influence from Turkey and other eastern countries was also there and I even could recognice a similarity to the Nordic folksongs and dancing. I was so glad to see that this culture tradition was kept and to be shown as an important part of a people’s roots and tradition.

It was difficult to take pictures of the dancers swinging around so fast as it was quite dark, but I’ll show you some examples anyway. Both the professionals and the amateurs:-)

So that was my two stories from Bulgaria and I do hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. But now the 17th of May, the Norwegian national day is soon to come, so my next posts will be about the culture and traditions from Norway – stay tuned!

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