Homestyle meal at Kafana

New York City lets you try some of the most interesting things for dinner. To share a bit of his heritage, a friend invited us out to a Serbian restaurant, deep in the Lower East Side. A tiny space, filled with pictures and memorabilia from the Old Country, it really felt like the neighborhood joint for the local community. The menu was short, but the list of specials was nearly as long. Both were filled with dishes with names new to us, but populated with ingredients more than familiar from other Eastern European meals: Pork, cabbage, potatoes.

Our host selected a wine for the evening that we have never seen before, a Plantaze from Vranac Barrique in Montenegro. The wine was smooth and heavy, with strong fruit and chocolate notes that let us order some hearty food. We ordered some dishes to share around the table to try some new things, and some wonderful main courses. Another first for me, I enjoyed my first blood sausage. An earthy, herbal, meaty sauce packed into a thin sausage casing, it made for a powerful counterpoint to the luscious wine. We did discover that cabbage is hard to pair with wine, which might explain the greater prominence of beer in cabbage rich cuisines. This will require more research.

Photo courtesy of Kafana