BG food, Sofia

There are a lot of restaurants around Sofia, international, Italian, Chinese... But, since you're here, you might as well choose 1 offering some Bulgarian specialities. There's for example this 1 at the corner of Maria Louiza and Tsar Simeon, where you can choose a meal (soup, main dish with salad and a desert) for 8 leva or less.

Everything's very clean and the service is OK.

Favorite Dish: I ordered a steak with mashed potatoes, tomato salad and strawberry pudding.

To be honest, I didn't like the steak, because it was too spicy for my taste.

Bulgarian cuisine is quite heavily centred on salads, which are varied and tasty. One of the most famous is Shopska, which is diced tomatoes, cucumber and grated cheese (rather like Greek feta). Bulgarians have their own white cheese, similar to cheddar and rather nice, which they use a lot in cooking. They eat bread with everything.

A very typical cold soup is tarator, made from yoghurt, water, diced cucumber and garlic (worth a try!)

The main problem I found was the lack of menus in English. I learnt to read cyrillic script whilst I was there, but had it not been for my friends I'd have been very hungry! Some restaurants do have menus in English but you have to ask for them, and in these kind of restaurants the prices are normally higher than average. On the whole food is pretty cheap in Bulgaria - perhaps not surprising since their salaries are lower.

I'm not a big restaurant fanatic and I swear to snack bars and street vendors food
Snack bars are cheap, good and this is where the normal people grab lunch or have a break!

Favorite Dish: - kebab (djoener in Bulgarian)
- pizza (you can't go wrong with pizza!)
- shopska salata ( salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes, and goat cheese, yummie!)

This is the most common salad in Bulgaria at all but it's name becomes from the people who live in the area around Sofia - 'shopy', and the name of the salad is 'shopska salata'.

Whichever restaurant you try, go for the national dishes -- not only they are made of natural ingredients, but also in a known, proven-in-practice ways (I mean Boeff Stroganoff will taste different at each place, Shopska salata won't).

Favorite Dish: Shopska salata and mixed grill for the carnivores; and; snezhanka and mish-mash for the veggies.

Favorite Dish: Irish breakfats