A Hearty Bulgarian Meal for $10 CAD ...
... no beer or wine with dinner tonight, with that bottle of Melnik to polish off, so a little OJ instead. Tarator, the famous Bulgarian chilled cucumber yogurt soup - not a fan! Too sour, not suited to my palate. Parlenka - a disc of Bulgarian bread, a bit like the thicker Greek pitas you can get. This one was served with garlic butter - nice tasting, but it was over grilled and was a bit too hard and crunchy as it cooled. Dipping it in the tarator softened it up, and also improved the taste of the tarator itself. The main course was a dish of stewed/braised pork, mushrooms, and onions, and all covered in cheese and baked. The pork was nice and tender, but still maintained a bit of texture. Sweet and savoury ... yummy, despite being a tad greasy and salty. A squeeze of lemon provided some nice acidity, a nice foil to the pork dish's sauce, which was a lot like a thick, salty French onion soup.
The Bulgars, a Central Asian Turkic tribe, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state. In succeeding centuries, Bulgaria struggled with the Byzantine Empire to assert its place in the Balkans, b... ... read more 
