Dinner at Carú cu Bere

Welcome to Bucharest, Romania on a beautiful Friday night in May. There are lots of young people in this town so the mood is festive as the weekend 
kicks off.   We are dining tonight at Carú cu Bere which is a very touristy but atmospheric restaurant in the heart of the old town. It's a German-style restaurant with a very traditional, old world style interior. I'm not usually a proponent of touristy spots like this. Generally if a restaurant has a gift shop, it's out for me. But this place has had my eye for awhile, and I'm a sucker for a good German restaurant.   It gets crowded here on a warm night like tonight.  It is smoky inside, like most Romanian restaurants, so we chose to eat outside. The staff was friendly but very busy managing the large crowd. One waitress corrected our attempt to say "thank you" in Romanian.  Apparently I've been saying it wrong all this time!   If you come, eat here- it's worth spending some time wandering around the restaurant. The basement area is especially cool with classic paintings on the wall and heavy dark wooden furniture. A full meal here with appetizers, entrees, salads and dessert was less than $18/person!  

The entrance has a really neat-looking door.

The menu here is huge. It's like the Cheesecake Factory of Romania! The menu is huge and a little intimidating. It was kind of difficult to read.  

We sat outside with a nice view of an old church. There are some renovations underway, but the patio was still nice for dining.

They had dancing and singing inside. It was like catnip for the tourists.  

Cold sauerkraut salad. The flavoring was a little different than I'm used to. When in season, the vegetables are very fresh and delicious in Romania. I don't think they know what pesticide is here. Chuck said they looked a little better than they tasted. Pork neck. What more can I say? The little potatoes were really tasty too. The goulash was spicer than usual and very delicious.

The Papanasii was fresh and tasty. Traditionally these come as a double. It's a very heavy but tasty dessert. It's like a fried cake donut with sweet cream, apricot syrup and powdered sugar. Apparently every Romanian mother has their own interpretation of this dish.