Bulgarian To Go-Go
What happened to all of New York City’s Bulgarian eateries? The most well-known, Bulgara, closed earlier this year. None of the leads we found at FindBulgarianFood.com panned out: phone numbers had been disconnected or were actually fax numbers, a restaurant called Cafe Albona is now the RSVP Lounge, and some, like the Oomonia Cafe, just plain don’t serve Bulgarian food (we stopped by to check). The only thing we could confirm via telephone and the web was that the Parrot Coffee Shop in Astoria is a Bulgarian grocery store, and that the Mehanata Bulgarian Bar, previously on Canal and Lafayette, had moved to Ludlow and Delancy Streets.
RSVP lounge: not a Bulgarian restaurant
After a short jaunt around Astoria checking to see if maybe, just maybe we could find a Bulgarian restaurant, we quickly resolved to believe what the woman at the Parrot Coffee Shop told us on the phone: there are no Bulgarian restaurants in the city. Alright already. We decided a Bulgarian picnic would do just fine, and headed to Parrott, located at 3112 Ditmars Blvd in Astoria, not far from the very last stop on the N train.
One is greeted by a generous assortment of nuts, dried fruit, and candies upon entering the store. Further back is a large olive bar, and a deli counter with meat and cheese cases. Baked goods like baklavah and burek line the counters. All the way in the back and along the opposite wall are frozen foods, cookies, juices, fresh baked breads, and general grocery items.
It’s a bit of a mixture of middle eastern and eastern European goods, so it isn’t easy to tell which items are from Bulgaria. We split up and started gathering whatever we could find that was distinctly identified as Bulgarian: Bulgarian feta from the cheese case, Bulgarian sausage, a yogurt salad prepared in house, the Parrot nut mix. A bag of freshly baked round bread. At the point we were reaching, wondering – how do we know what we are picking out is necessarily Bulgarian? There was only one thing to do: ask the owner!
As soon as we told her that we wanted to eat Bulgarian she replied, “Ah, you are the people who called this morning asking about restaurants?” Yes, that would be us. No, there are no more Bulgarian restaurants in the city, but Parrot can help you with your Bulgarian fix. She took us on a tour of the store, with stops at the Bulgarian juice area, by the Bulgarian sparkling water, over to the meat in the freezer where we picked up some lukanka and sudjuk, both Bulgarian cured meats. We were convinced to try a wheat beverage called Boza that comes from Chicago, but apparently the Bulgarian community goes bonkers over. We then went past the Bulgarian cookies, over to a few shelves stocked with what I dismissed as pasta sauce, but turned out to be various tomato-based spreads. After choosing a jar of eggplant spread and another more straight tomato style, we headed over the Bulgarian frozen foods section, where one can pick up pastry stuffed with spinach and feta or a breakfast pie stuffed with cheese – just pop them in the oven for 30 minutes and voilá. Finally we arrived at the checkout counter, where we found it hard to pass up a few Bulgarian candy bars while we waited for our cured meat to be sliced.
Devin Bulgarian sparkling spring water
Lukanka
Boza: tastes like liquid pita bread
A 10 minute walk later we arrived at Astoria Park. 10 blocks long by about 3 blocks wide, the park is nestled between the Triboro (er, I mean the Robert F Kennedy) and the Hell’s Gate Bridge, and overlooks the East River. We picked out a choice spot on the lawn and ate our feast as we watched tankers float past and kids play in the city’s largest public pool. Everything we purchased at Parrot was delicious. The bread was up there with the best round breads I’ve had, the homemade spreads and salads were creamy and rich, and the sudjuk was perfectly spiced. The jarred eggplant turned out to be a hit, and it made good mini sandwiches with the feta and meat. We munched away until we were absolutely stuffed, then rested on the grass and enjoyed a pleasantly cool summer evening.
But wait! We weren’t finished with Bulgarian yet. After a brief detour over to Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park Bandshell to watch and listen to Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (we knew 1% of the guitarists playing that night), we couldn’t resist heading down to the Lower East Side to check out Mehanata Bulgarian Bar. Two of our trio had been before to their old location, and it was a wild time. The new spot is considerably more subdued (at least on the night we went), probably due to the fact that it is split between three levels, whereas the old space was essentially one large crowded room of sweaty people. I actually enjoyed the new space a lot more. We arrived on the lower level as world-music punk group !OUTERNATIONAL! started rocking, but decided to check out what was happening upstairs. The upper level is oddly saloon-like for an Eastern European bar, with log railings and wood paneled walls. A band called Flexus, from Italy was just getting started. The group consisted of a guitar player and a saxophonist, and they really energized the room. By the end of their two-part set, about 20 people were dancing.
We couldn’t help noticing that Mehanata had a kitchen, and waitresses were bringing out food. We wondered – could they actually be serving Bulgarian food? A waitress was snagged and a menu obtained. Lo and behold, their short menu is in fact largely Bulgarian. Yogurt salads, sausages, fried potatoes…it looked delicious. Sadly, we were still far too stuffed from the picnic to order anything. But we can confirm that there Bulgarian food is served hot at at least one place in the city. Instead, we sipped on some of their deliciously strong homemade vodka cider.
As the night went on, the place got more and more crowded. Where we were sitting, up in the balcony on the upper level, a group of young men were being entertained by a couple of scantily-clad Eastern European ladies. We moved back down to the lower level, just in time to catch the start of Uproot Andy‘s DJ set. I have to confess: Andy was actually the main reason I timed the Bulgarian adventure for this particular evening. I had been wanting to check him out live after recently downloading his Guacharaca Migration mixtape, and buying Bersa Discos 4, which features three Uproot Andy tracks. His set at Mehanata did not disappoint. Tropical beats flawlessly mixed with some Eastern European sounds kept our group drenched in sweat, dancing into the wee hours of the night.
It sucks that New York rents are going up so much that many of the unique restaurants can’t make it in the city anymore. Something really needs to be done to protect the city’s flavor before it gets completely ruined.
Agreed, Alfred. We’re hoping that by showcasing some of the more obscure restaurants in the city, we can help bring support to them. But of course, that doesn’t solve the problem of rising rents…