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.

Two Restaurants In One Day

During the dinner party (see previous post) we were discussing the state of restaurants in Belgrade and my impressions so far (I wonder how THAT subject came up). It turns out that my cousin and one of the other guests know a chef who has returned to Belgrade after an extended time working at restaurants in Melbourne and has just recently opened a new restaurant. We made a reservation then and there for the following night and I was really looking forward to see what we would find.

The next day arrived and knowing that we had a restaurant dinner that night I wasn't planning on a big lunch, so my project for the day was to find some great street food. For those of you that don't know, in Australia we have these little take away places everywhere that sell deep fried foods: dim sims, spring rolls, potato croquettes, chips, potato cakes, etc. I have yet to find anything like that here. I have seen grills, which serve serbian hamburgers, cevapcici
(skinnless sausages) and other grilled meats and on this morning I found a place that served freshly made crepes with any number of savoury or sweet fillings. These are quite common and they sell many other baked products and sandwiches. Since it was breakfast, I went for an apricot jam filled crepe. This was delicious and a little messy, served in a triangular shape in a paper bag, just what you want for a walking around snack. If you ever come here, make sure you try these, they are less than $2 AUD and taste great.

Next we caught a bus to an area where there is an island in the middle of the river. I don't mean a small island, this place is huge, with roads, walking tracks and beaches. As it is only very early in the holiday season over here and the weather hasn't been great, there weren't many people around, but I'm told that once the weather starts heating up, this place gets packed with people.

After that we went to the biggest orthodox cathedral in Belgrade, which is still under construction (or repairs), but is a very impressive sight. It is modelled in Haiga Sofia and will amazing to see once it is finished, but that may still be several years away.

I really wanted to do a review of one of the street grills, so on the way back to the apartment, we were looking for one, but with very little luck (there are plenty in town, but they are a little harder to find once you leave the main area). After asking around, we were recommended a restaurant called Lovac (Hunter). We decided to go in and try their food and try to have a small lunch just as a sample. Our waiter was the best I have seen so far in Serbia, he spoke fluent english, was friendly, excited and eager to recommend dishes and even offered combinations that were not on the menu. Choosing the veal soup to start and asking him to come up with a combination platter of some of their main dishes and to include venison (with a name like Hunter I had to try some game, right?) and the Serbian hamburger.

I haven't mentioned this before, but the traditional Serbian appertif is a fruit based brandy or rakia. For this meal the waiter recommended we try the quince brandy and I'm very glad he did. It was fantastic and the fruit flavour really came through, which it doesn't always.


According to many of the Serbians I know from Melbourne and the ones I have met here, a meal is never complete without bread. In fact, my mum was asked to cut the bread for a meal with one of my aunts the other day and was told "You cut bread like an Australian, I can almost see through it!" Bread should be cut thick and there should be plenty of it. The bread that came to our table next was a selection of three types, including white, dark and the traditional flatbread. I didn't try the white, but the others were great.

Soup came next and as it was placed before me I was a little put off by the amount of oil floating on top. When making soups in school we are always taught to skim any fat from the soup during cooking. I wondered about this out loud and my mum told me that it is traditional to thicken certain soups with a roux. This is a common thickening agent made from a combination of fat and flour, often the fat is butter, but oil is another possibility. Also, dried parsley made another appearance, which I think is really disappointing with the fresh stuff so easily available.


Apart from these issues, this was a very flavourful soup and I'm glad we ordered it.

We wanted something a little different from the normal plain garden variety and were recommended one but I forget it's name.

Lightly dressed and with a good selection of vegetables, this was a great salad. The radishes go really well with fattier or richer meat dishes and that's exactly what came to the table next.

Roast Lamb and scalloped potatoes. Plus the rest.

Clockwise from the top: More potatoes, Venison, a very large pljeskavica (hamburger) cut in three pieces and ten cevapcici.

The potatoes where tender and delicious, the lamb falling off the bone tender and very nice. The venison was disappointingly dry, but had a very powerful smoky flavour which I liked. The hamburger was my favourite, juicy and smoky with plenty of garlic this was the example of what this dish can really be. The cevapcici were good too, but tasted a little plain next to the hamburger.

I probably don't need to say this, but there was no way we could finish all this and the waiter was happy to pack the rest for us to take with us. They also offer a take away service.

Overall, this was a great lunch, but what really made the meal was the waiter and it wasn't just us he was this good with. We saw him serving several other tables and they all had as good a time as we did, regardless of their age. The prices were reasonable by Australian standards, roughly $35 AUD per person inclusive of drinks, but expensive in relation to other local prices. I would definitely recommend it. The main problem was that we were so full and still had dinner to look forward to.

That night we went down by the river to an area very similar to Melbourne's docklands, old warehouses along the water, many of which have been turned into trendy shops and restaurants. As we came to Iguana, I knew we would be in for a treat. The decore is very classy and modern with a well stocked bar and impressive wine list. The food is heavily asian, with Malaysian and Thai dishes making several appearances. In general there is quite a bit of seafood on the menu and most dishes look quite light. It is also worth noting that the menu is written in both English and Serbian. We were seated on a table adjacent to the stage on which a live jazz band was playing most of the night, but I never felt the music was intrusive. When we arrived the tables were only half full, but not long after we were seated the restaurant was full with people sitting at the bar and waiting for seats. Obviously this is not a secret and the locals are enjoying it already.

As I was still working on building an appetite after lunch, I wanted to eat something light. As my appetiser I chose the Calamari with Shitake Mushrooms.


This was a little larger than I expected for an appetiser, but after seeing the sizes of servings at other local restaurants, I can understand why. The flavours here were very well balanced, the calamari cooked perfectly and with just the right amount of heat. You can't see them in the photo, but this also as a bed of noodles underneath. I didn't feel like this added anything to the dish and personally would have left them out.

Since this was larger than expected, I chose to go for the Duck Salad as my main course.

Another great dish and I was really happy to see someone using the beautiful lettuces that are available at the moment. My one complaint about this dish is that it was a bit too bitter for my taste, most of these lettuces having a strong bitter flavour, I would have replaced the orange slices with a slightly sweetened orange sauce to contrast and bring this more into balance. The duck was cooked perfectly, tender and still red as it should be.

I still had a little room for dessert and even though I had been recommended the Sticky Date Pudding, I chose the daily special Cheesecake.

The base of this cheesecake was particularly nice, with the filling being light and delicious I finished the lot.

The owner also made an appearance during our meal and he spent some time at each table making sure each guest was having a good time. It really added a personal touch and we got to talk to him a little about his experiences in Melbourne and of his work in Serbia. This was an excellent way to spend our last night in Belgrade and I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about coming to this city. The prices are quite reasonable, being comparable to most of our cafe prices in Melbourne.

Well, that's it from Belgrade for now, I'm not sure if we'll be spending any more time here before we leave the country, but I've had a fantastic time here and hope the rest of my trip is as good. For now it's on to Sremska Mitrovica, a country town about and hour or so drive from Belgrade.

Thanks to those who have left comments on this blog so far, I really appreciate knowing who is reading and what they think. Keep it up and let me know you're out there!

Are Three Hats Better Than One?

After sleeping through my first evening in Belgrade, I was conscious of my dwindling remaining nights in this city. I needed to see what a restaurant dinner was like here. especially after seeing the availability of great produce earlier in the day, I was eager to see how that translated onto the menu and ultimately the plate. Now I'd like to apologise at the start for the quality of photos in this post, I'm still working out the settings on my camera and I'm trying to avoid using a flash so as not to annoy other diners.

Was it a revelation? A life and perception altering experience? You'll have to keep reading to find out. Don't scroll down to find out because I'm watching!

We decided on the restaurant Tri Sesira (Three Hats) as it is in an area full of restaurants that is usually buzzing with people and each restaurant has a live band that wanders from table to table playing traditional local music. What better way to immerse ourselves in the culture?

The weather was a little on the chilly side, but in true Melbournian style, we opted to sit outside and experience the atmosphere of the area. We had arrived a little early for our 8pm reservation, but there was only one other table with people on it outside and perhaps half the tables inside were full.

Starting off with a shot of Zuta Osa (Yellow Wasp) which is a brand of plum brandy, the waiter suggested a cold appetiser to share consisting of some smoked meats and cheese. How could we say no after the fantastic smoked meats we had seen at the market earlier?


The prociutto was quite nice and the fetta a little too salty for my taste, but overall this was a reasonably good dish to go with our drinks.

The menu was extremely meat-centric (as I expected) but I was disappointed to see very little reflection of the gorgeous seasonal produce we had seen and experienced earlier in the day.

For main course we opted for a selection of mixed meat platters and (because I have to try something a little different) a serve of Gigerice (chicken livers). As a salad I ordered the roasted capsicum.

The salads came first, which smelled amazing and you can see in the photo below how much garlic was used for the dressing.


One disappointing aspect of this dish was that is wasn't cleaned. Normally roasted capsicum would be served with the skin, stem and seeds removed so that the diner just enjoys eating the dish without having to clean around the stem and work their way through the skin. The taste was very nice and perhaps a little more roasting would have brought out more of the sweetness of the paprika and I would probably use less garlic as it was a bit overpowering.

Next came the main course, lots and lots of meat.


There was cevapcici, chicken breast, pork cutlet, shashlik, steak and the livers (wrapped in BACON!). On the side were chips and raw white onion without dressing. Since this is what Serbian cuisine is known for, I was expecting the meat to be delicious and juicy and while I know that Serbs don't usually use spices or sauces in a big way to flavour their meat I was hoping that the natural taste of the produce would stand out.

Unfortunately I was disappointed on almost all counts. By far the best part of the meal so far was the roasted capsicum. The meat was almost universally overcooked, dry and very hard to eat. As far as the meat went, the cevapcici were the juiciest on the plate but couldn't even hold a candle to the ones we get in Melbourne even from the supermarket. The livers were by far the most flavoured thanks in large part to the bacon and were possibly the only item that wasn't completely overcooked. The onion was far too strong to eat and seemed to only have been put on the plate as an afterthought or garnish or just to fill up the empty space.

After the morning at the market and seeing what is available as far as produce goes, I find it very difficult to reconcile in my mind such a sad example of the local cuisine.

Well, putting the main course aside, I hoped that dessert would be able to make up for it at least in some small part. Trying to go for something that was traditional and that would hopefully be something that would be common and hard for them to mess up, I selected crepes with walnuts (something I remember my grandmother making when I was a child). Also the menu suggested that these were then cooked in milk, something a little different but similar ot another dish common to my grandmother's kitchen. Unfortunately I was told this was not available at this time, but having decided on crepes I chose another dish with an interesting description. The one line menu item seemed to be saying that the crepes were served in a zabaglione-type sauce made with wine. This is a sauce made with eggs and sugar and is usually quite sweet and fluffy (very rich and decadent) but I didn't know how the addition of wine would affect it, thinking that perhaps they used a sweet or fortified wine.

Technically, the sauce was smooth, velvety and rich, but the wine they had used had a particularly high acidic taste and could almost be described as sour. I really didn't like this flavour combination and felt it really took a lot away from what, otherwiseW, was a really nice dessert. The crepes were great, the walnuts were a nice textural contrast to the smooth crepes and silken sauce and really held their own, but that wine flavour was just too distracting.

Another distracting thing I thought deserved a mention was the band. There were five of them and they were playing and singing at the top of their lungs and making it impossible to talk to other people at the table. It was ok when they were in another room or at a reasonable distance, but the pair of guys at the table next to us were well and truly into their rakia (perhaps a bottle each) and were tipping the band and signing along.

Overall I felt a little betrayed by this meal. Not necessarily on my own behalf, although I feel I was promised a lot more than was delivered, but I felt betrayed on behalf of the hard-working people I had spent the morning with in the market. People who were proud of their produce and were eager to have people try what they had to offer. I say this because most tourists would experience their first taste of Serbian produce from a restaurant like this one and most would never get a chance to see what is really available to these restaurants as far as raw materials go.

I had to take a step back and reassess how I was judging this meal. Was I being too harsh and judging them unfairly by standards I have become accustomed to in Australia? Sometimes I tend to do that, but I also don't want to make excuses and begin saying things like "This was a pretty good meal.....by Serbian standards" or "As far as Serbian food goes...". I had to know if I was the only one that felt this way, but after asking my parents - who have been to Serbia many times and have eaten at this restaurant previously - their response was similar to mine. They said that this was worse than an meal they have eaten at that restaurant before and perhaps the worst they had eaten at any restaurant in Serbia.

Maybe this is a one-off thing and I guess it would be good to get a bad experience out of the way first and move on to better ones as the days go by, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to become concerned about what I would find.

Stay tuned.

This Little Piggy Went To Market

One of my favourite things to do even at home is to visit the market, but even more so in a new town or country. Today was no exception.

I've been looking forward to see what the Belgrade markets have to offer and knowing that most of the stall holders are the farmers themselves only makes it more exciting to see what they have. To say that the produce is amazing is an understatement, but lets start with breakfast. After the cooked breakfast from yesterday, we decided on a traditional Serbian breakfast of baked goods.


I wanted to try everything here, it smelled and looked so good, so I had to drag myself away and left the ordering to my mum and went across the road to grab some Kiselo Mleko (literally Sour Milk) which is the same thing that we call yoghurt, but what they call yoghurt here is what we call buttermilk. Anyway, here is what breakfast for three looked like this morning.

As you can see, while many of these things look a similar colour, the flavours are very different. The mini-pizzas on the right had a very thin slice of proscuitto, some shredded mushrooms and cheese on a base of puff pastry (nice enough, but not outstanding). The darker rolls on the left were fairly plain with a flavour I couldn't quite identify, probably some sugar based coating brushed onto the loaves before baking like molasses which gives them that beautiful brown colour. In the front left is something called a Pogacica (similar to a scone, but made with lard so it has a strong savoury flavour. This is what we had the yoghurt with and while very nice, I have had better ones made by my grandmother). To the right is a cheese filled burek which was the absolute highlight for me, these were flaky and delicious, with the cheese filling being crumbly and slightly salty. Lastly for a little sweet finish, at the very back and small scones filled with jam, which you have to be a little careful with or the jam may spurt out all over you.

On to the market.

The first stall we encountered sold some dried cranberries which were delicious so we bought some of these to keep in the apartment as a snack (I'm muching on them as I write this). We walked to one end of the market which was where the cheese stalls were set up inside a building.


One thing I noticed immediately is that the cheeses at this market (and that the Serbs usually eat) is very fresh and very plain. There are no mold cheeses or smoked cheeses. They have cheese made from cow's milk and sheep's milk and a product called kajmak which is basically the cream skimmed from the top of milk and turned into a cream cheese which you can buy mild or aged. The other main cheese is a delicate, smooth, mild cheese similar to fresh mozarella. The thing that struck me the most about these stall holders is how proud they all are of their product. Every single stall we walked past, we were offered tastes of almost everything in the stall with the stall owner wanting to tell us all about his cheese and how it had been produced.

Behind the cheese area we found heaven.



I mean the smoked meat area. Now we're not talking about champagne ham or ham on the bone here, or "chicken" lunch meats. We're talking about home made sausages, cabanas and BACON. Bacon with so much flavour you can see it.

Wow. I wanted to bottle the smell in this place and use it to spray around my guests at dinner parties to generate an appetite. So, after spending surprisingly little in this room, we moved out into the fresh produce area.
It is just the beginning of summer here and you can tell by all the amazing berries and stone fruits that were on offer at the market stalls. There were fresh raspberries, strawberries, cherries, even red currants, which I haven't had since I was a kid. This tiny, round, smooth-skinned berries explode with flavour when you bite into them and have an amazing taste that wakes your tastebids up. Most of these berries were around 200 dinars per punnet (or about $AUD4). The most amazing of the berries was the strawberries...these things were bigger than golfballs and smelled absolutely fantastic. We bought a bunch of these to take home too.

The colours and smells from all the stalls were amazing, and I could wander for days just sampling a little here and a little there.
I had a preconception (as much as I try to avoid them) that Serbs, while very good with meat, didn't really have an appreciation for good, fresh fruits and vegetables. I am happy to say that this is not the case, as everywhere I went, I saw amazing variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs and fresher and better looking than those you would find in our larger markets back home. I guess this is due to the fact that there is no wholesale market in Belgrade, these stalls are all run by the farmers themselves and while we have farmer's markets back home, they are often hard to get to or only open once a month.
By the time we left the market we needed a coffee, so we stopped at a cafe just outside the market and started thinking about how we were going to go back to our apartment and prepare some of the fresh ingredients we had purchased. We got up and started to walk home, when my Dad wondered off and came back very excited, telling us to forget eating what we had bought, he had found what we had to have for lunch. We followed him to a shop called a Pecenjara (or Roasting House) which was a tiny little shop that just sells roast meat. You probably have an image in your head of a nice piece of roast beef or pork from which slices are carved for sandwiches, but what I mean is this:

Yes, that's a whole piglet and a whole lamb. You simply tell the owner how much you want and he cuts it off the whole carcass with a huge guillotine. I thought the smell of the smoked meats was the best I would find all day, but I was wrong. So wrong! We asked the owner how many he goes through in a week and he said about 50-60 whole animals. I can see why.
So we bought a slab of each and took it back with us for lunch and while I expected the pork to be good (and it was), the lamb was absolutely sensational, tender and juicy and delicious.
What a day!

Good Morning Belgrade

Waking up at 6:45 am was a bit of a surprise, but I wasn't too tired, so I got up and started thinking about breakfast. My parents (who I am sharing the Serbia/Montenegro stage of my trip with) were also up and we put it down to jetlag and decided to go for a walk into the city and find somewhere for breakfast.

Our apartment is close enough to the town center of Old Belgrade to walk there within 10 minutes, so it was a great way to check out the local area as well as the town. There were bakeries and little cafes everywhere, but I wanted a hot cooked breakfast of eggs and bacon, so we kept moving. Eventually we found a nice restaurant in town called Biblioteka (Library). After realising that people were smoking, we asked if there was a non-smoking area and were told that it was upstairs. Now this sounds fine until you realise that upstairs is not closed off and is directly above the smokers, but it wasn't too bad as we sat down and took a look at the menu.

Now if I was expecting Eggs Benedict or Florentine, I had to readjust my expectations. Poached eggs were not on the menu anywhere, only scrambled of fried. There was an omelet also, but I quickly found something that grabbed my attention: Bibloteka Dorucak (Library Breakfast) which was their version of a big breakfast. This consisted of a fried egg, vienna sausage, ham, cheese, fried potato chips, tomato chutney and mustard. Now I have to apologise for not taking any photos but I was hungry and didn't think to grab the camera before I was already well into it. My mum ordered the bacon and eggs, which was 3 fried eggs with bacon, dad ordered the omelet. Both came with the potato chips and sauces. This wasn't the best breakfast I've ever had, but it was very nice. The ham and cheese both seemed a little flat and after tasting the bacon, I would have gladly substituted the ham and cheese and had bacon instead. We all had juices and coffees. The total if this meal was about 1650 dinars for three of us, about $AUD33. At these prices, I'm gonna love this town.

Deciding to do some more walking to compensate to some extent for breakfast, we continued our walk through the old city and headed for the fort in Belgrade, Kalemegdan.

This is a huge sprawling fort set on a very high hill in Belgrade, overlooking the meeting of the Danube and Sava Rivers.



The views from here are spectacular and it is surrounded by parks and gardens full of people from teens to senior citizens. Some just enjoying the view and the day and others gathered around chess boards, playing and chatting away.

Walking back through town we saw some poets from all over Europe sharing poems about Belgrade and their impressions in several different languages. We would have stayed and listened to this longer if we weren't already fairly tired and we also had to head over to my cousin's place for a late lunch at about 3pm.

Now I don't think I've walked this much in a long time and I was very tired when we got back to the apartment, but we soon headed out for lunch and had a great afternoon with several members of my dad's side of the family and got home around 7pm. Being as tired as I was, I decided to take a nap before figuring out what to do for the rest of Saturday night. I'm sure you can guess what's coming, but I didn't get out of bed until about 11 hours later.

Let's put it down to jet lag and see if we can make up for it today (Sunday).

This is not the way home.

So much has happened over the last few days, but I'm going to try to pare it down to the salient points...yeah right. First stop was Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Arriving into Abu Dhabi at 6:30am after a 14 hour flight with a layover of about 6 hours ahead of me was not the most exciting prospect of my trip I can tell you. The outside temperature at that time of the morning was already 28 C. The airport was very clean and modern and all of the staff spoke English. The tiolets were or a familiar layout with an addition I have never seen before - inside each cubicle, next to the toilet was a hose with a trigger nozzle attachment. I had no idea what these were used for, but guessed it may have something to do with washing the feet. How wrong I was. It turns out that this hose is used for the same purpose a bidee is used in French toilets. Also there was an attendant in each toilet who would immediately go in after a parton left to clean up, from what I saw there were often very large puddles of water in the cubicles after someone left. That is definitely not a job I'd ever want to be doing.

After a mix up with our gate number for departure meant that we had to walk all the way from one end of the terminal to the other, I departed Abu Dhabi on my way to Frankfurt.

I'd like to make a brief side note here to say that even after several negative reviews about Etihad Airways that I have read on the net, I was quite happy with the service and flights that I have been on so far. The attendants are perhaps not as attentive as they could be, but the entertainment system is quite extensive and on-demand, meaning you can pause, rewind, etc Movies or TV shows and the selection is quite broad.

Arriving in Frankfurt airport, I was glad to see that this was also a clean, modern airport and was directed to catch the train to terminal 1 (all this without going out through customs!). Let me say that terminal 1 in Frankfurt airport is like Footscray or Sunshine Train Station. You could easily imagine a zombie movie being filmed in the dingy, spooky looking area where my departure gate was located - by far one of the most depressing areas in an airport I have yet seen. Needless to say, I didn't want to hang around that area for my 3 hour layover so I went upstairs and sat in McDonalds for a bit. Now I'm not sure I want my first meal review on this blog to be about McDonalds, but I have to say I had a very good burger here. It was some kind of special burger called a Beef Ciabatta or something similar, but it had red onions and at least 2 different types of lettuce and tasted really good. They may not be using 100% Australian beef, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

So after getting on the Lufthansa flight for the final leg of my outbound journey, I was very glad this was only a short flight (less than 2 hours). This plane was small and reminded me of a budget airline with no entertainment system at all. I'm glad I had my iPod. Arriving at Belgrade airport was less of a shock than it would have been had I not stopped in Frankfurt and was kind of on par with what I would expect from an eastern european airport, but with less security. Not very modern or particularly clean, it's not horrible either and from what I could see, customs consisted of a single guard who let the majority of people past with barely a glance.

We had previously arranged for a driver and car to pick me up at the airport and he was waiting right near the door from the international area with a card with my name on it. We did this because apparently Serbia has quite a few fake taxis which will rip tourists of as much as they can. The driver was very friendly - and drove me directly to our apartment and I payed him the pre-arranged price of 15 Euro (about $AUD30). This was about 12:30am. After making my way up to the 6th floor in an elevator no larger than your average fridge, I was finally in my home for the next 6 or so days. Quickly checking the view from the blacony and having a quick tour of the rooms, I was very happy with the accomodation and immeditely decided I needed to try out the bed with every expectation of a long sleep in on Saturday morning.