Serbia wraps up with Saran

Our last night in Serbia and we moved closer to the airport, New Belgrade. This is also close to an area called Zemun which is home to a well known restaurant called Saran (Carp). Heading down to Zemun was an experience, with streets full of people and cars, I'm glad we were in a taxi because there is no way I would have been able to get through without hitting someone or something.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the outside area was full of people, but luckily there was one table available. The service was great and the atmosphere, even though the place was packed, was still conducive to conversation - at least until the 5-man band decided to start playing right behind my head. They didn't stay there long though, moving off to play at other tables and the music wasn't too loud.

To start, since this is a fish restaurant, we chose the Riblja Corba (Fish Soup) which was full of flavour and the fish had a great texture, although there were a lot of bones and these can be a disctraction from enjoying the soup.

We also ordered the pate and this was delicious with lots of paprika and garlic.


For mains, mum chose the fried catfish which had a light coating of batter and was tender and juicy.
Dad chose the fish in tomato stew. This was light and tasty, full of fresh flavours and if I could choose again I would have selected this.

What I did order was the Catfish cooked in mashed potato and cream. This sounds great and it really was, but it was soooo rich I could not even eat half of it.
Overall this was probably the best traditional meal I had in Serbia, a great way to finish my time in this country and even though there is obviously still much room for improvement in the way Serbia sells and presents it's cuisine, there are places that are genuinely making great moves forward and I look forward to seeing what happens in a few years.