Cafe Sofia
By Phyllis Richman
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 24, 1995
In a country where we routinely eat bagels for breakfast, burritos for lunch, pizza for dinner and Thai curries for a change of pace, you'd think there'd be no cuisine left to surprise us. Yet far from a metropolitan center, in the shadow of a McDonald's sign, Winchester, Va., has a certified rarity--a Bulgarian restaurant.
Its window boxes are filled with artificial flowers, and next to the door a wheelbarrow is planted with real marigolds. Logs are piled on the porch to fuel the fireplace in winter. Positioned on a utilitarian commercial strip, Cafe Sofia's lacy Victorian porch is an anomaly. Inside, too, this is a little folk festival of a restaurant, with promotional literature ("Affordable Bulgaria") and souvenirs on display in the entry lounge. You almost expect the staff to be in costume.
Even the kitchen looks homey, like a slightly enlarged family kitchen. You can watch the activity through a picture window etched with a map of Europe. The dining room is the cutest of all. Walls of rough unfinished wood are painted burgundy and edged in green. The tablecloths are green also, with burgundy napkins and overlays of hand-woven textiles. The windows are covered with crisp, lacy white curtains. But that's mere background. On every available ledge and shelf sit folkloric dolls and plates; every wall displays weavings, embroidery, baskets. The tables hold hand-painted bowls of saltines, painted wooden service plates, floral-patterned silverware and wax-sealed jars of dried flowers and beans. I've seen craft shows with sparser displays.
This is the archetypal mom-and-pop restaurant, though in this case Mom--who is both owner and hostess--is an extremely elegant woman with a trill of an accent. She's savvy enough to know that her customers might not order unfamiliar dishes, so she brings around a tray of sample plates of the specials for diners to look at. You can choose one of the five Bulgarian wines, available for $3.50 a glass or $15.95 a bottle.
Because entrees come with soup and a salad, you don't need to order an appetizer. But you might want to do so for curiosity's sake. Sharing an hors d'oeuvre plate won't disrupt your appetite much: The plate includes two tiny spinach pastries in phyllo--too heavy and dry to make you wish for more--with a small scoop of the fish-roe dip called taramasalata, which is here deliciously tart and briny, and a fat stuffed grape leaf, its lean meat-and-rice filling and yogurt-dill sauce so good that you might consider a whole order as an entree.
If you're in luck, the soup will be a characteristically Balkan specialty such as thick bean puree with plenty of hot red paprika. The salad looks like a standard international plate of chopped lettuce, cucumbers, tomato and onion, but it is improved by earthy feta cheese grated on top.
The menu makes much of the "bowls"of hollowed-out round breads, in which entrees can be served. They'd work better if they had the coarse density of Old World breads. But with Cafe Sofia's spongy loaves, the sauces turn the crumb to mush, and after you've broken off a hunk or two of gravy-soaked bread, the rest is just for show. Once you've appreciated the novelty, you might as well order your meal on a plate. The pierogi is a big turnover filled with seafood or moist, tender chunks of chicken and some chopped vegetables, a few beans, even some stray spaghetti. Its pastry has a tendency to become soggy (especially since, like many of the entrees, it is served over tomato-sauced pasta), but such a hearty dish is a welcome change after a summer of simple corn and tomatoes.
Here's a restaurant where you'd expect the goulash to be good, and so it is--although it does have two flaws. The gravy is over-thickened and it doesn't permeate the meat and potatoes. It's as if the gravy had just been ladled onto the stew at the end. Even so, it has a deep, full paprika flavor that reminds me that good paprika is far more than a powder to add color to grilled fish. The same gravy is served on the grilled meats, but I'd ask that it be served on the side.
Kebapcheta is ground beef and pork, perfumed with cumin, garlic, pepper, onion and parsley, formed into long sausage shapes before being charcoal-broiled on a skewer. When it appears as part of the mixed grill, it beats anything else on the plate--an overcooked lamb chop and tough, dry pork shashlik. Maybe the meats suffered from being ordered as a mixed grill.
Certainly the potato-and-meat moussaka wasn't at its best on a combination plate; it tasted tired and reheated but gave hints of past deliciousness. The other elements were fine: those lovely stuffed grape leaves and the goulash.
Bulgaria certainly isn't known for its crab cakes, but Cafe Sofia could be. They depart from Eastern Shore tradition in that they're creamy, but the crab flavor still dominates and the crumb coating is crunchy and greaseless. A light yogurt-dill sauce is the Bulgarian fillip.
Such dishes as pierogi, goulash and shashlik are common to much of Eastern Europe. And we're familiar with stuffed grape leaves, moussaka and taramasalata from the Greek repertoire. So what's distinctly Bulgarian here? Well, dessert. The apple strudel, made in-house, has a traditional filling of apple chunks with golden raisins and nuts to thicken the juices, and it is sweetened with restraint. It would be hard to find another strudel as authentic this side of Skyline Drive.
But even so, it's not the best dessert. Forget the fall colors--a trip to Winchester is warranted just for Cafe Sofia's palachinka. What makes these Bulgarian crepes so great is the yogurt. The hostess-proprietor makes her own. She even makes two kinds--one with skim milk for the cream sauces served with the entrees and another with whole milk and half-and-half for the desserts. The latter is as thick as ice cream, with the texture of mousse. For the palachinka, the crepes are folded over and topped with a scoop of this extraordinary yogurt, then drizzled with jam-thick raspberry sauce and pale green mint syrup. Also wonderful is the baklava, which is drenched in honey and then sits for a day to absorb it. The result tastes fresh and crisp, nutty and flaky--not to mention very, very rich.
You might be tempted to order two desserts. Or three. With tiny cups of thick, sweet Turkish coffee. Then you'll be ready to hike Skyline Drive.
Cafe Sofia
2900 Valley Ave., Winchester, Va
703-667-2950
Hours of Operation
Lunch: Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Dinner: Monday through Friday 5 to 9:30 p.m., Saturday 5 to 10 p.m.; closed Sunday
Prices
Lunch: entrees $5.95 to $8.95
Dinner: appetizers $5.95 to $7.95, entrees $12.95 to $28.95
Full dinner with wine, tax and tip about $25 to $35 per person
Other Information
• American Express, Carte Blanche, Diners Card, MasterCard, Visa
• Reservations suggested
• No smoking
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