Restaurant Casa Ardeleana @ Cluj Napoca, Transilvania - Romania

Cluj Napoca, Romania, heart of Transylvania: a wonderful city, where many students, Romanians, Hungarians, gypsies and many others from different nationalities live friendly together, and together they create an unique cultural life. This city, beautiful in this architecture, and full of traditions, will be in 2015 European Youth Capital and no other European Culture Capital candidate, to establish his important role in the all East Europe.

So, what could be better to begin our experiences in Cluj with a very traditional restaurant? We were glad to be invited from Gabriel in his Casa Ardeleana, a place that he manage now from 6 years, and try his speciality: the Bogracs, cooked out and then served to the guests. Casa Ardeleana means literally Transylvania House and this is the feeling we had when we entered at this restaurant, that is based in Bulevardul 21 Decembrie 1989 n. 5, inside the Sora Mall, in the city center of Cluj Napoca. We could not image to see this enviroment, below a commercial complex, as we could have the feeling to be inside a huge house of a big family, decorated and furnished with many traditional objects, that make this place first of all, a place to see as a little ethnographic museum.

Welcomed from the staff with a shot of Tuica, traditional and very strong plum distillate, we could talk and see Gabriel cooking outside the Bogracs and explaining us all ingredients and the way of preparing this old and traditional meal, that he serve every wednesday, after 7 pm.. Bogracs in fact mean Hungarian cooking pot used normally outside, above an open fire. He said us that it need 6 hours of cooking and all the vegetables inside melt, and become, together with many different spices, a very tasty sauce, where will be cooked 4 different kind of meat such kid, roe, pig and calf. At the end potatoes are added and served in also traditional plates, beside a different pickles vegetables, used to cut the heaviness of the dish taste.

And as you can image from the pictures this plate was a mix of fragrances and taste, that make of every morsel a complete and we can say dynamic experience, that change any time and is enriched from many different shades. Together with the plate we get the also typical and surprising red wine Feteasca Neagra, produced in many Romanian and Moldavian areas.

The restaurant offers many dishes from Romanian and Hungarian tradition sometime even influenced from Slavic and Serbian cuisine.There is also a good choice for main courses vegetarian, but there is no choice for vegan palates.
Satisfied we left the place with a good memory, and we remember the tables and the chairs, our favorite Casa Ardealasca pieces of furniture.

www.casaardeleana.com www.facebook.com/pages/Restaurant-Casa-Ardeleana