We stumbled around Albertplatz in blinding snow whipped into our faces by the wind and were really disoriented for a few minutes until we could look at map and re-orient ourselves. Then it became pretty easy. We headed toward this restaurant on the recommendation of a travel guide for the city of Dresden. We liked the layout of the travel guide, but I’m questioning the authors’ taste after tonight. This place wasn’t bad, but the service definitely was hit-or-miss, and the food didn’t wow us. It was fine, but we’ve come to expect better from restaurants recommeded by travel guides.
For the navigationally aware: Lat: 51.059924 Lon: 13.742899
Bar none, this was my favorite dining experience in Iasi. Nelu kindly took me on a night-time driving tour of the town, which ended here. I’d been looking for an authentic Romanian restaurant to try ever since I arrived on my first trip to Iasi back in November 2006. I am so glad he showed me this restaurant.
Nelu told me that Romanians like their food sour, and he was not kidding. We had crusty, crunchy bread on which we spread olive paste and red pepper paste, and an appetizer of dill pickles dusted with paprika. I tried a Romanian beer brewed in Iasi that is quickly getting famous. It was very good.
For the main course, I had mutton with polenta and sheep’s cheese. It was excellent. The sheep’s cheese adds a great tangy flavor to the polenta and also compliments the flavors of the mutton.
I recommend this place to anyone visiting Iasi looking for authentic Romanian cuisine. It’s so hard to find traditional places like these among all the pizza/Italian restaurants!