Sunday, December 27, 2009

Lithuanian Fish - Žuvis!

Ventes Ragas
Vente, Lithuania


Tomas and I went with the family out to the western edge of Lithuanian, along the Baltic Seashore. We stopped for lunch at a cottage style fish restaurant where we ate fish in many forms. The map above shows where we were, near the tip of a peninsula. The foggy rainy weather made sitting next to a wood burning stove all the more cozy.
First Course:
We started off with some Gira to drink. Gira is a traditional lithuanian drink made from fermented yeast. The taste is complex to explain in words: it tastes like bread and molasses and has the consistency of beer. Very tasty. To eat we started with some toasted bread and a parsley fish butter spread.

2nd Course:
Next we had some fish soup: fish broth with pieces of white fish, carrots potatoes and dill. The warm soup really warmed us up.

3rd Course:
Next, our server brought out a "snack." A full platter of a variety of pickled, oil packed, and jellied fish along with tomatoes and eggplant. We ate the aperetivo with some rustic lithuanian rye bread.

4th Course:
Lastly, we picked out a fresh fish from an iced bin and a cook grilled our fish in the stone fire place next to our table. We ate the fish with an onion-honey-mustad sauce, berry sauce and ground nut sauce. We also had potatoes (of course-Lithuanians love their potatoes) and a cabbage salad.


Labai Skanu! (Very tasty)

-Katie