Every breakfast tells a story: this is one of cross-cultural culinary confusion and cold sausages.
Veliko Tarnovo is a canny town, about 15km from our house in Hotnitsa, with lots of restaurants and cafes. Came here the other day, with my mate Barry. He'd remembered that this place did breakfast so we decided to give it a try. It started well with some appropriately named teabags:
We took a look at the bilingual menu - as in most photo-menus, the food looks like somebody's artistically reversed a truck over it:
We avoided 'Crazy Max' who looked too much like fun and we decided not to take the 'Soldier's Breakfast' as these military types get a bit touchy about their food. We chose the 'English Breakfast' and when it came I passed the sausage and bacon over to Barry.
Before meat transfer
Barry's banger bonanza
Unfortunately everything was cold - even the fried eggs - so we asked the manager if we could have it heated up. He said he would sort it out. A few minutes later a microwaved version arrived with freshly cooked eggs and it was all definitely a bit warmer. When we investigated further, the beans were kidney beans which had, by now, been nuked within an inch of their lives but following a judicious application of tomato ketchup began to resemble DIY baked beans. On reflection, the whole plateful must have seemed like a weirdly random selection of ingredients to the Bulgarian cook who perhaps couldn't decide which bits should be hot or cold.
It had snowed overnight, so we had a chilly view of Mother Bulgaria opposite the cafe:
What's the moral of this breakfast story? Fairly obvious really - don't go to a Bulgarian pizza place for an English breakfast but, if you get a chance, come and visit this fascinating country for plenty of other reasons.
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