Bucovina, a Romanian restaurant reviewed

“The time has come to review Bucovina,” he said with a heavy heart. After my initial post seeking authentic Romanian restaurants, followed by Rene G’s extraordinary one-night one-man Romaniathon, an intrepid band of culinary adventurers (ReneG, Cathy2, sazerac, A2Fay, and I—the Lovely Dining Companion could not be with us) decided to investigate…

But first, a side-trip to another Rene G discovery: Saravale Meat Market, on Irving Park Road. It’s a meat market with a couple of shelving units of pan-Eastern European jams, pickles, and so forth. Interestingly, very little of the canned/jarred goods was from Romania itself. But one doesn’t go to Saravale for the other items. One goes for the meat…and what a wonderful ethnic market it was. (You can consult the original thread for Rene G’s post of their sign, listing some of the delicacies on offer.) A wide variety of Romanian specialties, including a number of different sausages. The butcher came out from the back and insisted that we sample half a dozen different items, starting with the head cheese. Suffice to say, every single one of us bought something, and it wasn’t because we were being polite. There was a steady trickle of customers, all Romanian judging by the conversations. The women behind the counter were gregarious, language barriers notwithstanding (they were from Timisoara, in the far west of the country, and Sibiu, a beautiful old Saxon town in the central part of the country). We had a great time talking with them, joking, and learning about what they had in their glass cases. All in all a terrific place; if it were closer, I’d visit far more often.

Bucovina at 7 pm on a Friday night was empty. Totally, completely empty. Eventually a young woman appeared from behind a closed door that, I think, led to/from the apartment upstairs. (Parenthetical note: since its days as Vox Maris, another Romanian restaurant, the interior has been totally, beautifully remodeled. While not the place for that spare-no-expense romantic dinner, it’s a pleasant place, complete with tiny stage and dance lights!) The menu offers a nice selection of some classic Romanian dishes with a lot of unexceptional choices as well. There were only six soups, so we had them all: five were (supposed to be) ciorbas, a class of soups that are generally soured with a variety of things ranging from lemon juice to yogurt to sauerkraut juice. The word ciorba itself is an inheritance from the days of Turkish dominion. (Two-third of Romania, notably present-day Wallachia and Moldavia, were part of the Ottoman empire for centuries, ending only in the later 19th century.) The soups—and the word—derive from that time. I cannot now put my fingers on my source but the gist of the history is that the word ciorba is from the Turkish which, in turn, derives from the Persian “shorba.” There is an extended tangent here, but I will leave it for now.

The soups were mostly quite good. The tripe (ciorba de burta) was a creamy, buttery, soup with some of the most toothsome tripe I ever expect to have. The ciorba de perisoare (meatball) seemed to be basically the vegetable soup with meatballs in it. So too the beef soup. All three were very well done, thick with fresh vegetables, full of flavor, but not overspiced. The only thing missing was the tang of a ciorba. Still, all three were excellent. The ciorba de fasole, a navy bean soup, again lacked the requisite sour bite, but was perhaps the group favorite. There was also a nod to chicken noodle soup lovers: a very light but nonetheless delicious broth with vermicelli.

We then tried three standard Romanian salads, a cabbage slaw, a tomato, cucumber, onion salad, and roasted red bell peppers with a garlic dressing. Unless my memory deceives me, we agreed that all were fine but perfectly ordinary. Nothing surprising in any way; pleasant without being particularly interesting.

Dinner: we chose a grilled meat platter (with mititei, a pork steak, and chicken kebabs), sarmalute (stuffed cabbage rolls), and tochitura (a pork stew).

The sarmalute were a hit. The cabbage leaves had a bit of a vinegar-y edge to them that complemented the meat (pork) stuffing nicely. The mititei were a grave disappointment, both to those with prior experience of them and those without: they were very nicely flavored (generally these sausages, the pride of Romania, are made of beef and pork, sometimes with lamb added, and heavy on the garlic) but of very poor texture. As Cathy pointed out, the meat had apparently been overground, resulting in an oversoft, almost bad meatloaf texture. So sad because the flavor was otherwise attractive. The pork steak was fine but unexceptional. The chicken kebabs were also very nice but not unusual or “Romanian” in any way.

One of the most interesting topics, both that evening and in general, is the culinary heritage of this proudly—defiantly, one might say—non-Slavic country. Romanian is a Romance language and Bucharest was long known as the “Paris of the East.” Romanians long took a delight in all things French and the French responded in kind. (There is still evidence of those ties in a variety of ways, such as in the strong French championing of Romanian admission to the EU.) The language is comprehensible to those who speak Italian. And with components of Eastern European food (with what appear to be occasional Russian influences) as well as “Oriental” influences (pace Edward Said) through centuries of Turkish suzerainty, the food can be fascinating. Rene G asked, at one point, whether, like other Eastern European countries, a beet soup existed, noting its absence from the menu. It does, but it’s not a staple of the diet (or the cuisine) as elsewhere in that part of the world.

Time to note the mamaliga (advertised, I must confess, as polenta with feta. Worse still, the waitress said it WAS feta). So much for my brinza diatribe earlier. In any event, the mamaliga with cheese and sour cream (cu brinza si smantana) was excellent and enjoyed thoroughly by all.

Desserts were simple: clatita; crepes that were closer to pancakes, rolled around your choice of filling. We picked one serving with nuts and honey and one with farmer’s cheese. Both were quite good—the former especially so with the homemade tuica (plum brandy) I brought along in celebration. The tuica had a full, round fruitiness and just the right (IMHO) bite for a fruit brandy. Entirely delicious on its own, even better with the clatita.

Dinner wasn’t very expensive: the above with tip was about $20 per person. Still, it was, despite its bright spots, generally disappointing. I suspect that few non-Romanians drop in and the regulars no doubt know what to have and what to avoid. The place was entirely ours until our little party wound down. Between 9 pm and 10 pm, people began drifting in by ones and twos. By midnight, the place was probably hopping. But we were all long since home and busy digesting our first Romanian foray. Watch out Nelly’s and Via La Scala!



Saravale Meat Market & European Deli
5254 W. Irving Park Road
(773) 685-5126

Bucovina
6107 W. Addison
(773) 685-7323

I hadn't the faintest idea what Romanian food is supposed to taste like. Zero, zilch, zip. Which is why it was nice to go to Bucovina with company that could indicate if the fare was anywhere near authentic, whether I found it good or not. Gypsy Boy and Cathy2 were the designate Roumanian food judges, I was simply on the jury if you will.

The soups were quite good. Light mild soups. The tripe ciorba had a cream base and is one of the better tripe preparations than many I've tried. Small pieces of tender tripe, just a mild toothiness and hint of tripe flavour to remind you that it is tripe.

The salads we got were alright, but perhaps may have been better had we waited for the entrees so that we could have had these salads as sides.

There were condiments - delightful sour cream, fresh minced garlic and vinegar. We got more of the sour cream to top the mamaliga which was very good polenta . The brizna turned out to be feta - Greek feta to be precise. It was good nonetheless, grated over the mamliga.

The mixed grill platter allowed us to sample a greater range of the meats. While the pork steak was the best of the lot, with lots of nice crisp bits, the mititei was strange. Nice meaty flavour, but awful texture - spongy, almost bready. More than just overground meat, ReneG mentioned sodium bicarbonate as a leavening agent and googled recipes confirm this. However, what we got must have had a large excess. If I didn't know better (thanks to my fellow diners) this would put me off Roumanian meats.

Considering that Bucovina seems to be catering more to a Roumanian clientele, how are they managing with non authentic preparations?
I had the benefit of tuica and informed company.
Overall I'd say Bucovina is a place I'd not not go to.

Pictures from the dinner at bucovina

Gypsy Boy:

Thanks for the detailed report and more generally thanks for bringing the topic of Romanian food to everyone's attention. Even with the disappointment with some of the dishes you express above, it's both fun and interesting to have this whole set of ethnic places to try out.

Here are just a few language related notes in connexion with a couple of peripheral points that came up in your post:

1)

Gypsy Boy wrote: The word ciorba itself is an inheritance from the days of Turkish dominion. (Two-third of Romania, notably present-day Wallachia and Moldavia, were part of the Ottoman empire for centuries, ending only in the later 19th century.) The soups—and the word—derive from that time. I cannot now put my fingers on my source but the gist of the history is that the word ciorba is from the Turkish which, in turn, derives from the Persian “shorba.” There is an extended tangent here, but I will leave it for now.

The word "shorba" surely was, as you say, borrowed into Romanian from Turkish but the ultimate source of the word in Turkish is Arabic. The word for soup in Arabic is shurba which is a noun derived from the root <sh-r-b>, the most basic realisation of which is the verb shariba 'to drink'.

2)

One of the most interesting topics, both that evening and in general, is the culinary heritage of this proudly—defiantly, one might say—non-Slavic country. Romanian is a Romance language and Bucharest was long known as the “Paris of the East.” Romanians long took a delight in all things French and the French responded in kind. (There is still evidence of those ties in a variety of ways, such as in the strong French championing of Romanian admission to the EU.) The language is comprehensible to those who speak Italian...

The Romanians, even more so than other Eastern European groups, it seems to me, do very much want to think of themselves and be thought of by others not as 'Eastern Europeans' but just 'Europeans', and seek ways to emphasise their connexions to Western European countries, especially France, as you note above, and also Italy.

It is true that Romanian is a Romance language and thus is a continuation of the spoken Latin of soldiers and settlers who went to the Balkans primarily from Italy back in the glory days of Roman hegemony in the Western world, but Romanian is without question the most deviant of the Romance languages with regard both to structural characteristics and lexicon. I have known a number of Romanians over the years who have claimed that they -- without having studied Italian at all -- can understand and be understood when intereacting with Italians but this is more an instance of wishful thinking than linguistic reality. At a philosophy conference in Rome back in the 1990's I witnessed first hand the claim made and then followed up with an almost total inability of the Romanians in question to do much more than monolingual English speakers. And as a speaker of Italian and Neapolitan, who has in addition a thorough knowledge of Romance linguistics (which perforce includes some sense of how Romanian works), I must say that colloquial Romanian is for the Italian speaker only comprehensible insofar as there are in the Balkan language lots of words (most typically abstract nouns) which are readily recognised as cognate with Italian/Latin words; this is not sufficient for what I would call real comprehension, falling short even of the level of limited comprehension Italians who are unschooled in Spanish have of that language (which is, of course, both structurally and lexically far closer to Italian than is Romanian).

Once again, many thanks; it's especially nice to have the input of someone who knows the cuisine and country first-hand. After a couple of bad experiences (coming after a few good ones) at Little Bucharest, I think I had lost interest in Chicago's Romanian restaurants. But on the basis of ReneG's and your posts, I look forward to sampling some of these restaurants and the dishes mentioned above.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:The Romanians, even more so than other Eastern European groups, it seems to me, do very much want to think of themselves and be thought of by others not as 'Eastern Europeans' but just 'Europeans', and seek ways to emphasise their connexions to Western European countries, especially France, as you note above, and also Italy.

I spent most of my time in Romania during the period of Ceaucescu. It was quite a different communist country from the rest of Eastern Europe and the USSR. It was the only iron curtain country which had an Israeli Embassy. There were Israeli representations in each country, though hidden in various embassies. It's strategic political alliance was not to the USSR, rather it was PR China. So their independence from their slavic neighbors is rooted very deep.

When I visited Romania the favored second language was French rather than English everywhere else. Interestingly, Imperial Russia also felt cultural alliances with France. I believe the majority of the aristocracy and landed-gentry fled to France after the revolution.

I've been advised Eastern European is no longer the preferred designation. Central Europeans is preferred, which is probably correct since Europe extends into Russia quite far.

Cathy2 wrote:I've been advised Eastern European is no longer the preferred designation. Central Europeans is preferred, which is probably correct since Europe extends into Russia quite far.

Well, they can have their preferences but for my money, in English it's still Eastern Europe (especially the Balkans which directly border to the east Asia Minor), 'Central Europe' being strongly associated with the German-speaking lands which have, of course, some cultural points of similarity with their Slavic (and Magyar) neighbours to the east but cannot in any reasonable way be grouped together with the Kultur-zone of the Balkans at the regional level. The Balkans are a thing apart and I have long noticed and found amusing the use of "European" in marketing of Balkan (and to a degree also Polish*) restaurants and stores.

No self-respecting German, Frenchman, Walloon, Dutchman, Fleming, Italian, Catalan etc. etc. would ever open a restaurant and offer "European Cuisine," zum Beispiel.

Antonius

* The Polish use of 'European' in this way I find rather less goofy since Poland (like Czechia and Hungary) is very closely tied in so many historical and cultural ways to 'Central Europe' in the traditional -- and still quite appropriate -- sense.

Antonius wrote:The Balkans are a thing apart and I have long noticed and found amusing the use of "European" in marketing of Balkan (and to a degree also Polish*) restaurants and stores.

Perhaps its use is shifting, like "Oriental," which once meant Egypt and the Middle East (e.g. the Oriental Institute) and then the Far East, more specifically China, but now Chinese-Americans (of my aquaintance, anyway) object to the term, and when you see businesses marketing themselves as "Oriental," they are usually Filipino (or sometimes Korean).

I wrote:

I cannot now put my fingers on my source but the gist of the history is that the word ciorbă is from the Turkish which, in turn, derives from the Persian “shorba.” There is an extended tangent here, but I will leave it for now.

Antonius took the bait, as I hoped he might:

The word "shorba" surely was, as you say, borrowed into Romanian from Turkish but the ultimate source of the word in Turkish is Arabic. The word for soup in Arabic is shurba which is a noun derived from the root <sh-r-b>, the most basic realisation of which is the verb shariba 'to drink'.

I should know better than to get down and dirty with Antonius on matters of etymology, but (to destroy my metaphor) "in for a penny...." I dug up the volume I referred to in my initial post. It is from Nicolae Klepper's "Taste of Romania." Klepper is a Romanian expatriate whose cookbook is useful but whose expertise in matter etymological may be open to question. In any event, he wrote as follows:

"The word ciorbă derives from çorba, the Turkish word for soup, which in turn appears to be based on [the] Persian word shurba, composed of shur, meaning "salty, brackish," and -ba, a suffix indicating food. However, shurba has long since disappeared from Persian usage."

Paul Kovi's "Transylvanian Cuisine" is virtually no help. Kovi is (was?) Transylvanian by birth and his forebears apparently all Hungarian. His book (and attitude) are very heavily weighted toward the Hungarian and, although he pays some lip service to Romanian cuisine and includes some Romanian recipes (including several for ciorbă), he says nothing on this particular subject. (It should be noted that Transylvania was, prior to 1920, part of the lands belonging to Hungary--or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but this would be a tangent to a tangent.)

My best hope, for it is a very reliable guide and makes for fascinating reading, was Lesley Chamberlain's "The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe." Though written from a distinctly English perspective, the history and writing are both impeccable. Sadly, however, she says only the following in her section "Sour Soups": "The word ciorbă comes from Turkish."

Since I am unaware of any ties between Persian and Arabic (although I have a sense of impending correction), this would seem to be an either/or matter. My gut feeling, unhampered by knowledge or education, is that Persian to Turkish seems more "plausible" than Arabic to Turkish. But then, this board had educated and informed me more times than I'd care to admit!

As to the more practical question of Italians understanding Romanian (or vice versa), I can only speak from experience. Native Italian speakers of my acquaintance have appeared to me to understand, albeit with some clear difficulty, spoken Romanian. They have also claimed to be able to read written Romanian with fewer problems. (I have yet to meet any Romanians who claim to understand Italian with any facility. Should I do so, I would agree with Antonius that it is more likely to be a matter of wishful thinking than anything else. However, that being said, I think that such circumstances are far more complicated than they appear on the surface and that political and other considerations enter in to what appears to be an otherwise simple claim.)

Cathy2 observed:

When I visited Romania the favored second language was French rather than English everywhere else.

As to Cathy2's point about French being the second language, my own experience is that it depends entirely on where you are and who you're dealing with. I found French useful in some places but the old Saxon villages of central Transylvania were manageable only with my pitiable German. Of course, there are many, many places with Hungarian would stand you in good stead and, the further north and east you move, the more likely it is that Russian or Ukrainian would be of assistance in a pinch.

Then, too, as is true throughout so much of the former Soviet bloc, the age/generation of your interlocutor may make a huge difference. I have found places, for example, in Moscow, where I could speak English with few problems and be readily understood. (Though, curiously--and a phenomenon for which I have no easy explanation--I found English a much rarer commodity in Petersburg, the opposite of what I would have expected.)

And finally, as to Eastern v. Central, my friends and acquaintances throughout the former Soviet bloc are all eager to distance themselves from the bear. There are many ways of doing so; labels are but one means. In my experience, virtually no one likes the connotations associated with "Eastern," rightly or wrongly. I won't get into the discussion any more deeply: it is impossible to resolve and more, I think, a straw man for other philosophical issues. Besides, the Germans have a handy label: mitteleuropa.

And I now await consecutive interpretation....

(re-edited for clarity, conciseness, and comprehensibility)

Gypsy Boy wrote:As to Cathy2's point about French being the second language, my own experience is that it depends entirely on where you are and who you're dealing with. I found French useful in some places but the old Saxon villages of central Transylvania were manageable only with my pitiable German. Of course, there are many, many places with Hungarian would stand you in good stead and, the further north and east you move, the more likely it is that Russian or Ukrainian would be of assistance in a pinch.

I guess I should be careful to explain those I typically dealt with before the velvet revolutions. My principle relations in these countries were with the educated class (some might say politically connected, as well) who had permission to interact with foreigners. They may be foreign trade representatives, scientists, foreign relations departments of industries and other intelligentsia. Simply within these groups I knew hundreds of people throughout the USSR and Eastern Europe. These were also people who would very likely report my interactions with them to the KGB or whomever their local security officials may be.

In these circumstances and in the Romanian context, everyone I knew spoke French as a preferred foreign language. They all spoke English as well otherwise our conversation might be limited to food, the Eiffel Tower and how to find the train station.

During the period ruled over by Ceaucescu, it was not wise to strike up a conversation on the street with the local population. Every contact with a foreigner had to be reported to the authorities whether it was official or a lost person seeking instructions. If you approached someone on the streets of Bucharest, more often than not they would dodge you because they knew the consequences.

If someone took pity and tried to assist you, then they needed to report it to the authorities. The Catch 22 came if this person did not bother yet someone else reported their interaction and the authorities collect this good samaritan to inquire why they never reported their conversation with the American lady. People would spend all their lives trying to circumnavigate the security officials, now find themselves obliged to interact with them just because I was lost. For some it was the beginning of a nightmare, so I very rarely sought casual on the street interactions with anyone.

Gypsy Boy came after the revolution when travel and access to people were quite different. I've been to Romania twice since that time and visited those I visited before because after all these years we're friends.

Regards,

All points very well taken. And still true with regard to the "older elite." On my first trip, I was there to make presentations to Parliament and the members of Parliament I spoke with individually, particularly those in senior positions of power, spoke French. (They would likely also have spoken Russian and possibly another language depending, among other things, on the area of the country they represented.)

Cathy2's point about addressing strangers is also a good one to make and, indeed, even ten years after Ceausescu's death, many of the older generation were reluctant to engage with a foreigner. Interestingly, I found this much less true outside of Bucharest. People, particularly including older folks, were eager to meet and talk with a foreigner, even if we had to rely on gesture and my minimal Romanian vocabulary and non-existent grammar.

Bucovina closed as of October 14, 2008.

Sad news. The good news remains that there are a number of other Romanian establishments in Chicago that are well worth visiting. Although I have not visited all of them, I have visited and--as I once posted--was particularly happy with Nelly's. (FWIW, there are several other reviews of Nelly's in the same thread.)