Food and dining

Sick Nick - Montenegrin lager - palatable. Comfortably superior to the appalling rubber taste of Delhaize Premium (see below).

Delhaize Premium - on my first night in Sofia, I settled into the hotel with a self-catered meal and a couple of Delhaize Premiums, a pernicious Belgian pils which tastes of rubber. (The prevalent theme on Delhaize’s write ups on the ‘Ratebeer’ website is of cardboard; things must have taken an even worse turn in the factory since then, as mine were definitely ‘rubbery’). Opening a can of Delhaize Premium leads to loads of froth. Oddly, and somewhat worryingly, this frothing pauses. I thought it had stopped - it had stopped - but after sitting for a while, it started frothing again.

Šopska Salata - pulses will hardly be set alight by a conical pile of tomato and cucumber topped with grated traditional Bulgarian cheese, but in one of my three restaurant visits, this was actually pretty good. Enjoyed in a TexMex in Sofia.

Serbian drinking yoghurt - top marks; it may have looked wholly unappetising dumped in a steel jug at the Hotel Slavija, but it was great. Unsweetened and a good consistency. Hardly a ‘shoe in’ for gastronomic awards, but by some distance the best food I encountered in the Balkans.

Balkan dining

My first Adriatic meal was taken in a pleasant enough themed eatery in Bar called Las Ramblas, with steaks and cocktails named after famous landmarks in Barcelona; Steak Parc Guell, Cakey Familia and Pickpocket Risotto especially eye-catching. Las Ramblas also gave me the first hint of a music policy not solely focused on high octane, high drama disco. Well, so I thought, munching away on Roast Espanyols to the accompaniment of L Reed’s Perfect Day. I wondered if one of Lou’s edgier moments might be aired later or whether, as a Las Ramblas customer, I might even be treated to one of Lou’s accomplices or contemporaries, or perhaps a spiritual successor of some description. Hopes were dashed, however, when Reed was dumped in favour of the earnest squawking and tinny condensed evaporating drums of some unwelcome summertime smash.