What to Eat Around the World | Page 57 of 70
Hippo Café: Vietnamese Phin Coffee in Prague's Sapa
Vietnamese coffee from a phin filter can't be rushed - and at Hippo Café, a family-run café with its own roastery in Prague's Sapa market, nobody minds. The little metal filter drips straight into the glass, sweetened condensed milk waits at the bottom, and the terrace looks out over the whole of Sapa. A few minutes of waiting are as much a part of the cup here as the spoon is.
Hippo Café: Egg Coffee with a View over Prague's Sapa
Hippo Café is a rooftop café with its own roastery, right inside the grounds of Sapa, Prague's Vietnamese market. Here they make cà phê trứng the Hanoi way - egg coffee topped with a thick, sweet cream of yolks and condensed milk that you eat with a spoon. The drink was invented after the war by a bartender at Hanoi's Metropole hotel, back when fresh milk was hard to come by.
Staria Chinar: Bulgarian Cooking Where Varna's Locals Eat
In Varna I ate at almost the same place every single time - the Staria Chinar chain, named after a real hundred-year-old plane tree that still stands over its first restaurant. Five restaurants in the city, a charcoal grill, and the branch on Tsaribrod Street where I never once met another foreigner. And a pork steak, one of the best I've ever eaten.
Pleskavica: The Balkan Grilled Ground Meat Patty
Pleskavica is a large, flat patty of ground beef and pork with onion, grilled over charcoal. It comes from Serbia, where the southern town of Leskovac protects it as a trademark and grills a record-breaking one for the whole city every summer, and it's eaten across the former Yugoslavia. Bulgaria borrowed it along with its foreign name and sells it as Serbian without a hint of embarrassment.
Shopska Salad: The Bulgarian Salad with Grated Sirene
Shopska salad is the best-known Bulgarian salad: finely diced tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onion under a layer of grated salty sirene, in the colors of the Bulgarian flag. It passes for a traditional dish, though it has little claim to the title - it was put together in the 1950s by the chefs of the state enterprise Balkantourist for tourists on the Black Sea, and it took its name from a mountain region where tomatoes never grew.
Katak: A Bulgarian Spread of Roasted Peppers and Cheese
Katak is a Bulgarian spread of soured milk and salty sirene cheese with finely chopped roasted pepper and garlic. On the menu it sits among the salads, but you eat it with bread as a starter alongside rakija. It takes its name from an old Rhodope dairy product that aged in a clay pot down a well; today's restaurant version is made in half an hour in the fridge.
Snezhanka: Bulgarian Yogurt Salad with Cucumber and Walnuts
Snezhanka is a Bulgarian cold salad of strained sour milk, cucumber, garlic and dill, topped with crushed walnuts. It is named after Snow White for its white color, and Bulgarians call it dry tarator. The state enterprise Balkantourist gave it its present form in the late 1970s, just as it did with Shopska salad.
Garash: A Bulgarian Walnut and Chocolate Cake
Garash is a Bulgarian layer cake of thin sheets of ground walnuts, egg whites and sugar, layered with a filling of heavy cream and chocolate and covered with a glossy chocolate glaze. It was invented by Kosta Garash, a confectioner from Austria-Hungary, at his hotel in Ruse; today every patisserie in the country sells it, and in Varna you'll find it at Kramer patisserie too.
Rhomphaia Restaurant: A Fish Lunch Under a Thracian Sword in Balchik
Rhomphaia is a fish restaurant on the waterfront of Balchik in Bulgaria, named after the two-handed sword of the Thracian infantry. Instead of war history it serves Black Sea classics: a hearty fish chorba with hot sauce and lemon, and small fried fish called popcheta. Lunch with a sea view in a town that spent 27 years as part of Romania.
Lutenica: A Bulgarian Spread of Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes
Lutenica is a thick Bulgarian spread of roasted peppers and tomatoes that shows up in a little bowl next to your meat without anyone ordering it. It adds sweetness and smoke. Bulgaria calls it a national dish, historians can't date it, and Brussels knows its recipe down to the last percent. I've eaten it with meat in various places around Bulgaria.