Eastern Europe – Around the World in 196 Plates

Country 098 – Montenegro (Somun Superstar)

Published on December 15, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 998 Kingston Road, Toronto
Website: http://www.somunsuperstar.com/

Hey, look at that — country 98. I’m halfway through this thing! And it only took a scant four years. At this rate, I’ll be done sometime around 2023. Slow and steady wins the race.

And as it turns out, I picked a good restaurant for a landmark post, because Somun Superstar is absolutely fantastic. Easily one of the best places that I’ve tried for the blog so far.

As you’d guess from the name, Somun Superstar specializes in somun, a Bosnian flatbread that they bake fresh throughout the day in a wood-burning oven.

And in case you’re wondering why I’m writing about this for Montenegro instead of Bosnia — I’ve already written about Bosnia, where I ate a similar but infinitely inferior meal at Sarajevo Grill & Meat. However, Montenegro is Bosnia’s neighbour; they share much of the same cuisine, including somun.

I’m so glad I decided to check this place out, because that somun? Magical. They serve it still slightly warm from the oven, and it has an amazing flavour and a delightful fluffy chewiness.

You could put anything in that bread and it would be delicious. You could eat that bread alone and it would be delicious (and in fact I did exactly that — it was so good that I bought some to bring home).

But of course, they’re not going to put that level of care and skill into the bread and then whiff it on the filling. I got the Loaded Cevapcici, which comes stuffed with cevapcici (an Eastern European sausage), kajmak (a slightly tart, ricotta-esque dairy product), avjar (a spread made from roasted red peppers), onion, pickles, and hot peppers.

It’s incredibly delicious. Even aside from the bread, which, as mentioned, is magical, everything works so well together. It’s creamy, vibrant, crunchy, and meaty. It’s everything you want in a sandwich. The cevapcici, in particular, is way above average, with a nice amount of seasoning and a great meaty flavour. My only real complaint are the onions, which are abundant and somewhat overwhelming. But then I’m a weirdo who hates raw onion, so that’s on me, not the sandwich.

I also tried the somun bread pudding. I wasn’t planning on having dessert, but everything was so good that I figured it had to be done. And yeah: it was just as good as the sandwich, with a silky, substantial creaminess and a thoroughly irresistible custardy flavour. It was honestly one of the best slices of bread pudding I’ve ever had.

Country 087 – Albania (Mak European Delicatessens)

Published on June 30, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1335 Lawrence Avenue East, North York
Website: https://makdeli.com/

The burek at Mak European Delicatessens is shockingly heavy. Based on the photos I saw online, I assumed it was going to be roughly the size of a large bagel. The delightfully affordable price (six bucks!) also made me think it would be on the smaller side. Instead, it was as big as a dinner plate and surprisingly substantial.

Burek is a dish served throughout Eastern Europe (and beyond) in which phyllo pastry is stuffed with meat, cheese, or spinach.

Mak European Delicatessens — an Eastern European supermarket with a small restaurant in the back — serves one of the GTA’s more well-regarded versions of this dish. You can either buy them frozen to take home, or you can eat in the restaurant.

It was really good. I wish it had been a bit fresher — the would-be crispy phyllo pastry was mostly somewhat soggy, though the bottom remained quite crisp.

The filling was what made it stand out. The meat, in particular, was fantastic — it was juicy, nicely spiced, and quite tender. It reminded me of a slightly milder version of a cevapi sausage, and worked really well with the phyllo pastry.

The spinach was a bit more subtle in its flavour, but it was rich, cheesy, and enjoyable.

It’s not kidding around, however. I had half of the spinach and half of the meat, and it was a meal. The amount of filling is surprisingly generous, and the pastry is laden with grease.

Country 082 – Georgia (Suliko Restaurant)

Published on November 18, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1311 Alness Street, Concord
Website: http://suliko.ca/

One thing I’ve noticed while doing this blog is the culinary overlap in various parts of the world. Similarities like steak and egg dishes in Latin America, spicy rice in Africa, or more obvious ones, like noodles in Asia. It’s hard not to notice overlap once you start focusing on the breadth of world cuisine.

The latest (and oddest) connection I’ve noticed is serving bread with a spicy, salsa-like condiment in Eastern European countries — I first encountered this at Moldova Restaurant, and now at Suliko.

In fact, Suliko goes one step further, serving their bread basket with three different salsas of varying spice levels. It’s a tasty — if somewhat odd — combination.

I tried a couple of other things on the menu. First up: hachapuri imeretinsky, which is one of Georgia’s two national dishes (according to Wikipedia, at least).

It basically looks like a pizza, though it doesn’t particularly taste like that dish, with a softer and breadier texture, and a filling that consists solely of cheese. It was quite tasty, particularly when it was hot and fresh, with a nice contrast between the soft bread and the gooey, salty cheese.

The next thing we tried was khinkali, Georgia’s take on the dumpling, and their other national dish.

We tried a couple of varieties: pork and beef, and lamb. They were both really satisfying, with a soupy, meaty interior that features a very distinctive spicing that set it way apart from a typical Chinese dumpling.

The wrapper was also thicker than you’d expect, which actually worked quite well with the strongly-flavoured meat. It probably wasn’t necessary to get two different types of meat dumplings, however — though the lamb dumplings had a mildly lamby flavour, both types basically tasted the same.

Country 077 – Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo Grill & Meat)

Published on September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 225 The East Mall, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarajevo-Grill-and-Meat/1088266461319632

Sarajevo Grill & Meat is a bit odd; they have a few tables, but mainly, it’s a take-out joint and a little supermarket of sorts. They have several shelves worth of Eastern European groceries, a butcher counter, some cakes and cookies, and a hot table with savoury pastries.

They also have a few meaty goodies you can eat in the restaurant, with their specialty being cevapi, an Eastern European sausage.

I ordered the large cevapi plate, which comes with a whole pile of little sausages on a plate-sized piece of flatbread called lepinja.

It’s not bad, but the cevapi at Royal Meats (which is about a five minute drive away) is better on pretty much every level.

The main issue here is that the sausages are over-salted and under-spiced, with a one-note salty flavour that gets a bit monotonous after a few mouthfuls.

They’re also extremely greasy. This normally wouldn’t be an issue; there’s nothing sadder than a dried-out sausage. But these go a little bit too far in the other direction. It’s the type of dish where your mouth and lips immediately become slick with grease — a feeling that persists long after the meal is done.

It didn’t help that the lepinja (which was soft, fluffy, and a little bit chewy) was suffused with oil; some parts were downright mushy.

The dish came with a small container of a white substance that I’m pretty sure was just straight-up margarine or lard, just in case you want more grease to dip your greasy bread and your greasy sausages in. It’s basically a heart attack waiting to happen.

Country 068 – Azerbaijan (Kavkaz)

Published on May 6, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1881 Steeles Avenue West, North York
Website: None

My dining companion and I visited Kavkaz at lunch, and like a lot of the obscure restaurants I’ve been visiting for this blog, the place was almost entirely deserted (a couple of people eventually showed up, but it was mostly a big, empty restaurant).

I’m glad places like this can survive, even if I’m not sure how. And I’m especially glad in the case of Kavkaz, because the food was great.

Almost immediately after sitting down, we were brought a bread basket with warm flatbread, and a bowl with sauerkraut and sliced pickles. I’m not sure how these three things were meant to be combined (if at all), but they were tasty.

Up next was bughlama, a stew with fork-tender pieces of lamb, a very pronounced lemony zing, and fresh pops of herbiness from the abundant cilantro (or maybe not cilantro? It tasted like cilantro, but had a heartier texture and appearance. I don’t know; I’m pretty terrible at identifying herbs). The quality of the lamb was great, and the tartness from the lemon really made it stand out.

Our last dish was the lulya kabab, which I liked even better. Featuring a mix of ground lamb and beef, this tasted very similar to the kababs you can get from Afghan joints all around the city. It was tender and perfectly cooked, and was nicely complimented by the sweet and spicy sauce that came on the side.

It came with a side of potatoes that almost looked like thickly-cut chips. The slices were creamy and perfectly cooked, with a nice hit of flavour from garlic and dill. I wish they had been a little bit crispy, but they were otherwise pretty great.

Country 063 – Moldova (Moldova Restaurant)

Published on February 18, 2018February 18, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

It would have been nice if my first post-hiatus restaurant had been a little bit better than this, but then my pre-hiatus restaurant wasn’t great either. So I guess there’s a symmetry there.

And I won’t say that Moldova Restaurant was flat-out bad. The meal had its moments.

It started out uniquely enough — the bread basket came with a side of some kind of sweet, intensely garlicky salsa. It was interesting.

I started with the zamma — a Moldovan take on chicken noodle soup. Aside from the pronounced dill flavour, this tasted like it could have come out of a can. The hearty chunks of chicken and potato added some substance, but the flavour was just generic saltiness.

Next up was the chebureki, which the menu describes as a “fried meat pie.” This was fine. The thin pie shell was nice and crispy, and the sausagey filling was mild, but satisfying. I feel like it was missing something, but it was enjoyable enough.

Finally there was the mamaliga, which is essentially a Moldovan polenta. I like polenta, but I wasn’t crazy about this version. It was pretty tasteless (hence the sour cream and the feta cheese), and the texture was overly thick and gluey.

Country 041 – Serbia (Mississauga Serbian Food Festival)

Published on September 7, 2016September 7, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2520 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: http://www.msff.ca/

Well, they can’t all be winners.

It’s probably my own fault. Impressed by the notion of roasting an entire bull on a spit, I decided to check this festival out. I showed up at around 7:00, which was an hour before they were due to close. This is probably where I went wrong.

The bull on a spit was nowhere to be seen (it had clearly been carved up and disposed of by then) — a warming tray full of meat was all that remained.

I ordered a roast bull sandwich and went on my way.

There were a couple of fairly big issues here. For one thing, I’m pretty sure the aforementioned warming tray wasn’t actually being warmed by anything, so the very fatty beef was lukewarm and congealed. That wasn’t the best.

The other, more pressing issue was that the bun — which tasted like a variation on an Eastern European flatbread called lepinja — was cold, stale, and unyielding. I’m sure it was okay at some point much earlier in its life, but by the time it got to me it was better suited to be a doorstop, or to weigh down documents on a very windy day, or as a chew toy for an overactive dog.

I took a couple of bites, then brought the remainder of the sandwich home, tossed the bun, warmed up the beef, and ate the rest in bread that was actually suitable for human consumption.

It was a fine sandwich, I guess. It was a bit on the tough side, and there didn’t seem to be much to the spicing of the meat other than it being vaguely salty, but it was alright.

Country 029 – Hungary (The Goulash House)

Published on March 20, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 200 Main Street South, Newmarket
Website: http://thegoulashhouse.com/

I don’t think I’ve ever had an easier time figuring out what to order at a restaurant; I mean, it’s right there in the name. The only question was which goulash to order — they have three different types, so I asked the waitress and was informed that the goulash of choice is beef.

It comes with a small bowl of soup to start, which in this case was a creamy, garlickly cauliflower soup that I quite enjoyed.

I also really enjoyed the goulash, which was absolutely crammed with fork-tender chunks of beef, not to mention the abundant cubes of potato and the pleasantly chewy dumplings, all in an intensely rich sauce. It’s clearly designed to be shared; it even comes with a ladle to dole it out into the provided bowls. I made the mistake of polishing it off by myself, and spent the rest of the evening clutching my stomach and questioning the way I live my life.

My only complaint (aside from the aforementioned stomach-clutching) is that it had one spice that I couldn’t quite put my finger on that gave the dish a vaguely medicinal twang. I was mostly able to ignore it, but it was the one sour note in an otherwise stellar dish.