What's for Lunch?

I agree, it has been too long since I last mentioned food.  A few notes for you:

Number one, the diet here seems to consist mostly of dairy (milk, cream, butter, hard cheeses, sour cream and yogurt,) pork of some variety, and vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber, cabbage, carrots and mushrooms.)  An example of a vegetable dish I tried recently:  Ciuperci grătinate în sos de smântână... grilled mushrooms in a sourcream sauce.  A very good dish!

Number two, every salad I have had here is a chopped salad of some sort, be it mayonnaise or oil-and-vinegar based.  By chopped, I mean made with julienned or shredded vegetables... not a bed of lettuce.  An example:  I went to an Irish Pub (which played American hits from the eighties, and offered neither Irish- nor pub-food...) and ordered a salad with salmon and avocado... how's that for Irish?  :^)  Well, this salad was served as a large scoop of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, topped with some sort of cream/mustard sauce, and on the side are five slices of smoked salmon complemented by five slices of avocado and whole black olives.  I must admit, it was a fairly strange assortment of flavors.

And the third note?  Pelemeni is fantastic!  When Artiom and I sat down for a beer the weekend before last, he was nice enough to accompany me to the Fidesco afterward.  One of the best pieces of advice he gave me to date:  "try the pelemeni."  The pelemeni I get from the grocery is frozen... just add it to boiling water for 5-7 minutes, drain, add a bit of butter, and... presto!  Dinner is served.  Pelemeni is either ground chicken or pork, stuffed with finely chopped onion and black pepper into a pasta shell, which is crimped to make a sort-of miniature dumpling.

Alright, a couple more quick notes before I move on to the actual topic of this post (lunch.)  The traditional soup I couldn't remember the name of last Monday... zeama.  Zeama is a semi-sour version of chicken noodle soup.  It is fantastic, and highly recommended. Also, I have noticed that a lot of menus have rabbit... a good way to keep them under control out on the farms, I suppose.  I tried the "iepure în vin cu sos alb" (rabbit in wine with white sauce) and it was quite tasty.

Now lunch...
I decided to stop at the Fidesco on my way home from the hospital today, and while inside I came across some pre-made salads I had not noticed before.  Well, my curiosity quickly turned into "I'll try them all..."

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Alright, from the left:  salată de vinete, an eggplant salad (like Mama Ica makes;) a salad named asorti "solaris," which is basically an assortment of vegetables pickled to a sweet flavor much like "bread-and-butter" pickles; salată din varză, a vinegar-based cabbage salad spiced with dill; morcov potrivit picant, sweet-n-spicy shredded carrots; and on the other side of the plate, sarmale rolled in two varieties: with sour cabbage and with grape leaves. 

And on the plate?  Well first, a nice piece of crusty French bread (21 cents for a small loaf!)  And that chocolatey thing-a-ma-bob?  OK, you got me... that is a gogoase (doughnut) coated with condensed milk and cocoa, and filled with some sort of caramel-like cream.  Mmmmm....  A man cannot live on vegetables alone!  :^)

And that was lunch today...