When my girlfriend and I announced we were going on a 2 week vacation to Croatia with side trip to Bosnia, we were met with puzzled stare after puzzle stare. This was usually followed by one or more of the following questions:
“What do you mean you’re going to Croatia?”
“Are you mental!?!” (in some type of poor Rick Gervais accent)
“Wasn’t there a war there?”
“Is it safe?”
Truth be told, Croatia is safe. And beautiful. It’s been 10 years since the war ended there.
Plus, when the cards are played, for travel, the path less taken will always trump the all inclusive resort. The drunken frat boys en route to Mexico at the gate next to ours at the Calgary airport seemed oblivious to this pearl of wisdom. Oxford Dictionary definition of “Poetic Justice”: See H1N1
Ren was probably the most supportive of our destination of choice, concluding that Cro-asia was “a better choice than regular Asia”. In addition to lending his approval, he asked me to review an Indian restaurant for the website. As such, I did some preliminary research and found the address of a place in Zagreb, “Maharadža”. Unfortuanately, when we arrived in Zagreb, it closed. Whether this closure was temporary or permanent was difficult to say, but it left me with a serious dilemma as I scrambled for almost my entire vacation looking for curry in Croatia. At one point, I thought I had found a possible lead when I stumbled upon a café called Taj Mahal in Dubrovnik’s back streets, but it turned out to a clever marketing ploy and featured exactly zero curries.
What I learned about Croatian restaurants was rather insightfully sad. They really don’t have a lot of variety. Being on the Adriatic Sea, they have excellent seafood and being close to Italy, they can also do a great pizza. Outside of that, there are virtually no other restaurant types. There are numerous theories why this may be, including century long histories of ethnic cleansing. After all, if you can’t get along with your closest neighbours, how likely are you to welcome someone from Punjab or Bangladesh into your community? Herein lies the beauty of my own country. Or even Luxembourg.
So homogeneous is the cuisine of Croatia that when the owners of a new restaurant in Dubrovnik announced they were opening a strictly vegetarian restaurant, the locals concluded that without meat or seafood, the new restaurant would be serving plates with nothing on them. It’s no coincidence that they named the eatery “Nishta”; Croatian for “nothing”. To be fair, Nishta isn’t an Indian restaurant per se, but it does feature pakoras as well as a vegetarian thali. If I was going to fulfill my obligations to the website here in Croatia, this was where it was gonna happen.
We entered the restaurant cautiously and found the owner speaking German to another couple of other tourists. Having previewed the menu already, we were quick to order the homemade ice tea and veggie pakoras for a starter. They came with a yoghurt dipping sauce. Despite the offer of a side plate and utensils, we foolishly refused that offer and I subsequently sustained 2nd degree burns to my hands. This detracted from the taste but I suspect despite this fact, they were nothing to write home about anyways. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this from home.
Next was the vegetarian thali consisting of rice, naan, palak paneer, veg curry and dhal. Peasant’s food really. While the cheese and spinach dish was decent, the veg curry was boring and featured zucchini. I’m not sure that zucchinis are found in India. Lentils require spice to make them palatable and this dhal tasted like I was eating soil. Mmmm soil. The naan was caked in flour and was the same generic bread (or kruh in Croatian) we had been eating with grilled meat for the previous 2 weeks. The mark of a poor vegetarian restaurant is when you are unable to do Indian cuisine to any appetizing level. Its food that lends itself to vegetarianism in that, unlike most veg dishes, it actually has the consistency and taste of meat. Even in the most devout “meatatarian” can travel in India, not eat a single meat dish and be pleasantly satisfied. Nishta’s attempt was out right poor. Meanwhile, my girlfriend had the Asian noodle bowl and was pretty indifferent to it.
As we were finishing up, a German and an American girl, on vacation from their teaching jobs in France came into the restaurant. We had been running into them pretty much everywhere we went in Croatia, partially because there were few tourists in Croatia at this time of the year and partially because we both had the same shitty and unreliable Lonely Planet. While this isn’t a literature review, I’d advise travelers to Croatia to avoid Lonely Planet.
We finished our meals up with a chocholate cake and tea and then quickly took off into the dark back streets of the Old Town. While my girlfriend is rarely, if ever, critical about any restaurant, I was smugly amused when she quipped, “that place sucked.” I couldn’t agree more.
Nishta get a 4 for the curry.
Not at the restaurant
Josef Broz Tito
Tito Jackson
Phil Jackson
Rating:
BONUS REVIEW – Moerfelden Camping Platz – May 2, 2009Moerfelden/Frankfurt Germany
We had to stay over in Frankfurt for a night before our flight back to Canada. There are few cities in the world I detest more than Frankfurt. It’s a cesspool of industry and banking with a massive airport. So what better way to remedy a poor situation than with a stay at an airport hotel? In this case, the Holiday Inn Express.
The hotel is really in the middle of nowhere. It’s a good hike to the nearest S-Bahn making venturing into town a chore. Not that you would want to go there anyways. What there is, is a campground across the street with one Italian eatery and one traditional German biergarten and eatery. I’m not really sure about the German definition of camping but I like it. Weissbier and S’mors!!!
I love a good schnitzel. I nearly moved to Bowness just so I could be closer to The Schnitzel House. Readers of this website will also be aware that I love curry. Combine a schnitzel with an accompanying curry sauce, throw in a well crafted beer and you have made me a very happy man. If you have to be stuck in Frankfurt for a night, I highly recommend the CampingPlatz’s Curry Schnitzel. Simply Sensational.
