Bulgarian Meal at Jalan Sungai Kelian, Penang.

The next day, 7th Oct., will be Gill's birthday, but we will be preoccupied with preparations for the forth coming discussion at the end of the week, thus we decided to celebrate a day earlier and at place near to home. With much deliberation, at the end we decided to try out a place which CK & Lingzie have tried and blogged about, Vintage Bulgaria (VB).

Vintage Bulgaria is located on Jalan Sungai Kelian, just next to Ingolf Knipes. The proprietors has made some modification to the shop unit there, which was previously two storeys, to make it now two and half storeys. The lower ground floor would be the non-smoking dining area with a low lit ambient environment, which is a good place to go for romantic couples. The upper ground floor has bar and dining area too, thus it would be a bit 'happening' area for the energetic person. Then there is the 1st floor, which is still under works, that will will be their function room. Silviya, one of the owners of the place, informed me that the function room/floor may fit up to 60 pax. Therefore, a small party could be held there.

Lower ground dining area(top pix). Ground dining area and entrance(bottom pix).

The first dish that was served was the Shepperd' Salad, with eggs, black olive, mushroom, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, capsicums and feta cheese. The salad was light and refreshing because it did not come with all the common dressings like Thousand Island, Mayo or other heavy, creamy dressings. Gill and I actually like to have our salads lightly dressed with just olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar and season with pepper and salt. Thus, we will be able to taste the freshness and sweetness and feel the texture of the vegetables and its condiments in our mouth. Going back to the Shepperd's Salad, it was filled with the above, and thus we enjoyed the dish until the very last piece. But the salad is only good if you were forked all the ingredients of salad and eat it in a mouth full. In this way, then the explosion of freshness from the vege, sourness from the tomatoes, creaminess from the cheese, richness from the hard boil egg+yokes and saltiness from the black olives will hit the sense on your tongue and mouth. straight forward but complex experience.

The second dish to come was their Crepe Rila. A very good combination of flavours, salty cheese, earthy mushroom, sweet chicken and rich mayo. But the crepe skin was a bit of a disappointment, not enough egg and slightly on the the thick side. Overall it was a good dish.

For the main course, we had their Plovdiv Ribs and Platter Bulgaria. The Plovdiv Ribs if compared to the ribs from Tony Roma's, it will a bit of a put off not on taste but on portion. Taste wise it is a total different style from Tony Roma's, as the ribs (VB) is usually dry without glazing. But it was fragrant, with just enough seasoning meat dish. The meat patties, sausages and pork chop in the Platter Bulgaria should be home made, but they were not juicy nor moist and slightly salty taken on its own. The meat patties brought back memories of the house made pork burger patties my parents used to buy from the old Cold Storage in Penang Plaza, which has disappeared with their initial shut down many many years ago when I was still in Primary. In fact the two meat dishes would be better savoured with more potato, vegetables and pickled baby onions/shallots.

After trying out their signature meat dishes, we decided to try their signature desert the Baklava. It is made of mixed nut caramelised in sugar wrap in 'Poh Piah' skin and drenched in honey. The sweet and nutty taste was just what we needed to cleanse our taste buds of the salty and oily taste and feeling. They have actually taken the effort to improve this desert, but still it needs more work on the texture of the skin and the presentation. The skin was a bit tough and hard to handle. For presentation, it could be decorated with some mint leaves. And for serving, it could be served hot and crispy and accompanied with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make it crispy, and thus easier to handle yet cool enough when taken with the ice cream. But that is only my opinion, which have not been tested.

Although some of the set backs, I would definitely find the effort to revisit the place due to service rendered by their staffs. We like the style of waiting provided by this F&B outlet. The waiter/waitress are allocated to an area and are to wait the table until its guests leave. This enables the waiter/waitress to fully serve the guests and create the relationship with the guests and also get to know their likes and dislikes. I still remember the waitress who waited on us is Queenie who was friendly, informative and helpful, but somewhat shy at the beginning of the service.

On average, I would give this place:

• 3.3/5 for value (although the total bill was only RM 101.00)
• 3.5/5 for taste (because of the reduced portion of side vege with the main course and dry meat)
• 4.3/5 for service
• 4.5/5 for cleanliness
• 4.5/5 for atmosphere