Opa!

My friend Ems has been insisting on trying Bulgarian food. Unfortunately, there are no Bulgarian restaurants in Atlanta, the city with the second highest Bulgarian community in the US... The best substitute for Bulgarian food you can find here is Greek food, so we had dinner at Taverna Plaka recently.  This is a sit-down restaurant as opposed to a diner like many other Greek places, and serves food that's pretty close to what my mom would make at home. On a side note, if you go there, you probably won't be sitting down the whole time as the stuff likes to start random dancing sessions as people are dining, and make everyone join in. They dance a tradition Greek/Bulgarian line dance (the Bulgarian word is horo) that I highly recommend for everybody. They also have a belly dancer that performs for part of the night. Actually, the crowd is very diverse, and the place seems to be a favorite with both families and bachelorette parties.

Ok, back to the food... One of my most favorite things about Taverna Plaka is the complementary make-your-own hummus. Yes, it is complementary, and yes, you make it at the table. They bring all the ingredients (chickpeas, garlic, oil, salt, etc.) in a wooden mortar, and you smash them together and mix them with the pestle. Aside from being really fun, this is great because you can control how chunky the chickpeas are; I tend to like hummus with more chunky pieces. The hummus comes with warm, crusty French bread with a soft interior that's really, really tasty. Plus, they do bring you more bread if you ask for it.

I wanted Ems to experience some Bulgarian flavors, so we also ordered the tzatziki sauce with pita chips as an appetizer. We have this yogurt-based sauce in Bulgaria, but usually eat it as a side salad. The one we got this time was too salty, but it's usually good and very refreshing.

For my entree, I ordered stuffed peppers and tomatoes. My mom makes stuffed peppers all the time, so I was curious to see how close the ones at the restaurant were to home-made. The verdict is that they were pretty close. The stuffing they used contained a lot more ground beef that my mom uses (her stuffing is mostly rice), but it did taste almost the same. The tomato was stuffed with the same beef/rice mixture. On the side, I had lemon-roasted potatoes that I really love.

I recommended to Ems the lamb stew because lamb can be considered the national meat in Bulgaria. I expected the dish to be more like a stew - chunks of meat with veggies. Instead, it was a large piece of meat in the middle of a bowl of orzo pasta. The lamb was fresh, tender and flavorful. I think Taverna Plaka is the only place in Atlanta that can cook lamb the way I like it.

Well, maybe it wasn't authentic Bulgarian, but Ems really liked the food, making the night a success.