Like many other Israelis, we also traveled abroad during this long (and very welcome) holiday season. Only that half of the reasons that made us go were bureaucratic (to issue my Romanian passport), the other purpose was to show Avi where I grew up, and for me to take a trip there, after a long time that I haven’t been. The previous time I’ve been there was in 2001, and the feelings I remained with were ambivalent. I remembered a city full of unfinished buildings that seemed like buildings’ ghosts, I remembered poverty, and I also remembered gloomy people all over. Other parts of the country, mostly the mountain parts, I remembered as so very beautiful and with very clean air. And finally I remembered all the great Romanian food, that I love so much - Supa de Perisoare (a slightly sour meat ball soup) or Cordon Bleu (sort of a schnitzel filled with melting cheese in the middle), or Cascaval Pane (fried Caciocavallo cheese) or Papanasi (wonderful Romanian doughnuts, served with sour cream and jam - divine!).

Before going there I told Avi that he’s gonna taste one of the world’s best kitchens. He really took my word for it, loving my Mom’s food so much, part of it traditional Romanian. When we got there we realized that most of the dishes I told him about contained pork meat, which Avi doesn’t eat… Avi ended up giving Romania “The Schnitzel Country” title, and we indeed ate there some great schnitzels, about one of them I’ll tell you in a future post.
Every trip of ours, deliberately or not, eventually turns out being mostly about food. And of course - so did this one. So those of you who plan on taking a trip there, here are the things, the way we see them.

The first thing I looked for were traditional Romanian restaurants. Actually, most restaurants there are traditional Romanian, except a few ethnic restaurants - we saw 2 Italians and 1 Chinese. A great traditional restaurant we’ve been to several times was “La Mama” (meaning “At Mom’s”), it’s a chain and has several restaurants in Bucharest, and everything we ate there was great. Especially recommended is their wholemeal bread (in the photo below), a wonderful meat balls soup, and an awesome schnitzel topped with corn flakes instead of bread crumbs. You will see mostly locals when you go there, they really love it since the portions are generous and the prices - reasonable.

Another restaurant that I couldn’t wait to get there already was “Carul cu Bere“, a restaurant located in a beautiful gothic building, and that is open for 129 years. I remembered it as a very good restaurant from when I was little. We actually found there a great Romanian eggplant salad and an oh so tasty mamaliga dish, served with cream, yogurt and chees (it was the second time Avi tried to taste and like mamaliga. The tasting part went ok, but he failed to like it, again…). Other than that, the rest of the dishes were pretty mediocre. But I think what dissapointed me most in this trip was to discover that I no longer like the Romanian kebab. I tasted it twice, and it seemed too salty in both.

After fulfilling my hunger to traditional Romanian food, I started wondering where does the pastry world stand in Romania. When we left Romania, in 1989, there really wasn’t much of anything, but the pastry shops there were very good and updated to the current world’s pastry trends. I was dissapointed to discover that the pastry shops there, most of them anyway, are still stuck in the 80s’. One great chain we’ve found there though is called “French Bakery”. We ate a perfect butter croissant and a wonderfully fluffy and rich chocolate chips muffin.

2 Recommendations we have regarding street food are the “Fornetti” chain and the little windows behind them stands a woman selling delightful Romanian doughnuts. On our first day we began seeing a lot of little Fornetti shops, a small line of people standing outside of each one. We didn’t get the fuss, but decided to try it, thinking that if it makes so many people happy, it can’t be that bad. We found there the most wonderful cheese filled puff pastry we’ve ever tasted (better even than the best burekas I’ve eaten in Israel), although there are various fillings, even sweet ones, all of them great!
The doughnut shops I knew from when I lived there back then, their divine taste hasn’t changed, just many various filling options have been added.

Coffee-wise Romania was a bit dissapointing. In other European countries such as Spain, France and Italy, every single espresso we drank was marvelous. In Romania we had a wonderul espresso on our second day there, at “Cafe Geisha”, a small coffee shop designed in a japanese style. We’ve tried in vain to recreate the success again.

I almost didn’t see any ice-cream shops in Romania. In the beautiful old city of Brasov though, I ate a wonderful ice-cream near the black church, a little over-priced but great.

We spent our last day there at Anca’s house. Anca is a very good friend of my Mom. While drinking our morning coffee we saw on TV a live broadcast from a bread market held in a park, not far from where we were. Of course we rushed over there! A lot of stands were arranged all over the park, selling bread and many related products. There was one stand where a lot of people stood in line for. Obviously I joined the line, thinking that the best bread is right there. Was I right! After a short period of about 5 minutes, and 4 RON (the Romanian coin) later, I had a wonderful bread in my hands!

You can find more photos from our trip on Avi’s blog. He wrote one post about street photography there, and there are 1 or 2 more to come.

Yesterday I started my patisserie course! I’m so excited, and it was so much fun, eventhough the whole day was theory only. Next time we’ll start doing the real things! I never imagined a class schedule can be so much fun!

And for dessert, I’ll leave you with a traditional Romanian cheese cake. The cake is very easy to make, doesn’t require a mixer or food processor, you can make all of it with just a wooden spoon. I made it for our good friends - Guy and Lisa, that came to visit.

Romanian Cheese Cake / Recipe from a Romanian recipes site
For a 20X30 cm rectangular pan

Ingredients:
For the dough:
7 Tbsp milk
7 Tbsp vegetable oil
6 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 flat tsp baking soda
350 gr (2.5 cups) all-purpose flour

For the filling:
500 gr ricotta cheese
2 eggs
200 gr powdered sugar
80 gr butter
2 flat Tbsp semolina
20 gr vanillated sugar (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
grated zest of 1 lemon
100 gr light raisins (optional)

Directions:
1. Prepare the dough: in a small saucepan heat milk, oil and sugar. When it starts to boil, remove from heat and let cool until just warm.
2. Move the mixture into a bowl, and add the egg, baking soda and the flour. Mix until a dough is formed.
3. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Roll out both of them on a floured surface into a rectangle of the pan’s size. Don’t worry, the dough is easy to work with.
4. Place one of the dough parts on the bottom of a pan lined with a baking sheet.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
6. Prepare the filling: Melt the butter and cool it until just warm.
7. Add in all the rest of the filling’s ingredients, and mix until a homogenic mixture is formed.
8. Pour the filling onto the dough in the pan, and spread evenly.
9. Using a fork, make holes on the other half of the dough, then place it on top of the filling.
10. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top part turns golden.
11. Cool, powder with powdered sugar before serving.

18 Responses to “My dear Romania!”