Yay! I'm the first to review! *happy dance*
Back in the late 90's, this place was called the Adriatic Grill, it was run by Croatians and it was a little more uppity, but still fantastic. I actually had my 21st birthday dinner there (obviously... ahem... last year or something, *cough*... lol). These days its still great, but a little less uppity and more obviously Balkan. I can't help but have a little giggle about the European Union stars at the front of the restaurant and none of these dinky countries are in the European Union! Not the Croatians, the Serbs or the Macedonians... lol, its silly.
(And really, would you want to be? Its a bust! Look at poor old Greece! Jebise EU! That's what I say ;)
So its mother's day and my granny is REALLY picky about restaurants and has her very un-pc opinions about what nationalities run clean restaurants and which do not... so we thought we would keep it simple and go local and Balkan.
What I've always loved about this place is the open kitchen at the front. You can see them cooking. I knew Baba would like that. Everything smells fresh and amazing. Everything is clean.
The portions here are LARGE. The food is simple and PERFECT. I had pola pola, which means literally "half and half"... half a plate of cevapcici ("skinless suasages", usually a mixture of meats) and half grilled pork. It comes with a crisp, fresh, really well executed coleslaw and potato salad. My Aunt had grilled octopus which was delicious and everyone else had meat of some description. There is a lot of seafood on the menu, but I always order seafood everywhere I go and I really love the way we make meat, its the best... next time I'd like to order a meat dish and a seafood dish and share both with one or two others.
This isn't some frou-frou restaurant where you're going to get some ridiculous overwrought, pretentious sculpture on your plate, but its really great food. Fantastically cooked fish and meat, potatoes, sarma (minced pork in cabbage... a description that does it no justice, but thats what it is), peppers of all description... you top it off with palacinke (crepes) and a turkish coffee and you have yourself a memorable meal, that's for sure.
I almost took away a star because when we sat down, we asked for waters and the big, loud, bossy waitress brought us bottled water, which is BS... its prefectly normal to have a bottle of tap water brought to your table when you're seated and unless I say "bottled water please", you should assume I mean, just complimentary water, tap water, whatever it is you want to call it. The waitress had the absolute gall to say in Serbian (or Macedonian or Bosnian or whatever, I dont know where she's from) "ah, vidi se da vi ne trosite danas"... which means "clearly you guys are not spending much today"... honestly it pisses me off every time i think about her ignorant and rude comment, but otherwise the experience was so overwhelmingly good and everyone was so nice (even her, lol)... that I'll just let it slide.
But yeah... WOW.
I also think they need to get rid of the wannabe EU paraphernalia at the front, lol. read more