|
Side dishes and Salads
The vegetables used at the “Old Friends” cuisine are
selected to be fresh and of a high quality. Tomatoes,
peppers, eggplants, carrots, cauliflower …. are not the
only elements in our long seasonal vegetable list.
The variety of the vegetables cooked in different ways
enrich our guests table with a delicious taste. The
grilled, boiled, and rolled vegetables or the vegetable
creams are cautiously treated by the cooks and are
served in elegant and various compositions. Dandelions,
wild mushrooms and marinated vegetables are an
inseparable part of the friends tables.The fresh salads in the day menu are carefully selected
and change according to the season.The stuffed duck, the drumsticks and the piglet meat,
different rolls or the “imprisoned” egg are house
specialties that can be found only at “Old Friends” The croquettes, the vegetable balls (with potatoes,
spinach) or the house fergesa (fried egg curd)
give to your table a special tast
The Soup in bread cups.
“Old Friends” are proud of the way our soup is served
in bread cups. Every day we prepare two or three
different impressive tasty soups.
The cream chicken soup is an old dish of the Albanian
cuisine which is tasty, nutritional and is preferred by
all our guest friends.
The cream
mushroom soup, the celery cream soup and the
cream carrot soup are soups of the Italian cuisine
that
have a very delicate and nutrient taste and responding
to the refined tastes of our guest friends.
The cream
tomato soup is selected as the 2007 soup and no words
can be found to describe it.The cream courgette soup is an original creation of the
„Old Friends“ cuisine. This soup is served in a special
way and we would not like to make you loose curiosity by
telling more.
Lunching without a warm soup would be completely
senseless.
Pasta.
Pasta occupy an important position in the „Old Friends“
menu. A recipe from our traditional Albanian cuisine
prepared for our gust friends is the wonderful
pastiço (noodles baked with cheese, eggs and milk) .
What we have borrowed from the Italian cuisine are
various kinds of pasta most of which have already become
very popular in the Albanian restaurants. The house
taljatele have captured our imagination and are
served in the “Old Friends” way. They are served with
the famous Pulieze Brazhole in casseroles on flames
creating a lovely atmosphere. Our guest friends taste
our Lazanja, Kaneloni, Farfale with fresh tomato
and various pasta recipes with their same original
taste.
Lakroret ne saç.
(large round pie filled with some combination of
vegetables, eggs, cheese and meat cooked on a baking
dome)
According to the Albanian traditional
customs, after the wedding the bride and her mother in
law cook together lakrorin ne saç and the
relatives shall gather in order to taste the cooking of
the new bride. If it has a good taste she shall be
praised and shall be respected by all of them. It is the
same story that happened to Inxhi, one of our cooks; a
story that she likes to tell when preparing this dish.
Following the tradition of the new bride in the old
stories, she prepared the first pies and everyone tasted
them with a great pleasure and she received a lot of
compliments. Lakrori and petaniku ne saç
are already part of our guest friends’ tables.
Onion and tomato lakror, leek and curd lakror
as well as different petaniket cooked on baking domes
have a wonderful taste are very often served at the end
of the meal, “breaking the rules” because our guest
friends prefer to preserve this taste for a long time.
Skewered meat and the meat baked on ember.
The ancient tradition of skewered meat
and meat baked on ember is applied at the « Old
Friends » by the hands of Beqari as it is its old
passion. He is from Salaria (a region in the south of
Albania) and due to his age, 70 years old, his
experience is long and a rich one as well. You should be
there with him in order to see with your eyes the “rite”
of preparing and baking the lamb. He does not allow
anyone else to choose the meat he shall bake because, as
he says, it is a shame in his age to make a mistake for
this. Even if you insist, he shall not cede to remove
the meat from the skew or when baking it on the ember
unless he is fully convinced that it is baked properly.
The ritual continues with separating nishanet
(choice cuts of meat served to the most honored guests)
according to the tradition in the Albanian important
events like birthdays or weddings.
The famous Harapash (a thick corn
mush) from Laberia (the south of Albania) is
another passion of Beqari. He smiles when the waiters
mock him in saying that: Harapash is the pride of
Salari as Mercedes is for Germany.
The list of the cooking baked on ember
is very rich but always depends on the quality choice.
You know that is it becoming more and more difficult to
find fresh meat that comes directly from the butchers’
in the villages that still preserve their tradition in
this area. The “Old Friends” shall always maintain to
the old tradition that the guest receives the best.
Meat specialties.
Iliri does not much like it when they call it Chef and
modestly asks others to call him with his childhood
nickname – Liro. He is in love with the Italian cuisine
due to his stay in Italy for 12 years. Piglet filets
with mushrooms, zaferano or rice, the filet and the beef
cooked in numerous ways and tastes or different fowls
such as stuffed ducks, blackbirds or rabbits are all
dishes with which “Old Friends” is proud of. Every day
a new recipe is created and very often you can not tell
if it is from the Albanian or the Italian cuisine
because at the “Old Friends” they are combined
harmonically.
Desserts.
A good meal deserves a good dessert afterwards. “Old
Friends” prepares traditional tasty desserts. Very often
the dessert plates are decorated with fresh fruits
creating a natural harmony in order to bring your lunch
or dinner to a pleasant end. |
