Finger licking in Romania: Ep.3 Breakfast in Primăverii

The communist-elitist neighbourhood

In Bucharest, "Primăverii Neighbourhood" is known also as the place where all the fancy bullshit of the city is going on. When you say "Primăverii" (which, by the way, in Romanian means "Neighbourhood of Spring") you say anything from Porsche Cayenne upwards. If you drive a car older than 5 years there, which didn't cost at least as much as a 3 bedroom apartment at the time of buying, then you are nobody. With a capital N.

At least that's how the saying goes.

And because it's only a saying we chose to go to one of the places set right in the heart of the area, called Fior di Latte. I don't care I drive a Passat.

Primăverii neighbourhood is very well known because it hosts (and it hosted) some of the most wealthy people in Romania. The houses are luxurious and it's somehow a nice, green oasis, pretty much in the centre of Bucharest, with a lot of official buildings and some impressive architecture here and there. All of our Presidents (starting with the first communist who took power after they thrown our young King out of the country, Dej) stayed and stay here.

The fact was that we got here pretty late on that extremely hot day; we wanted to go eat somewhere else, try something new, but it seems that people book their Sunday morning in advance and think about ordering a table for their breakfast as a rule. It was full everywhere and we barely got a table here too but on the inside of course. While staying on the terrace may seem nicer, the fact that we were totally shaded and had some sort of venting made the late breakfast great.

Sweating while taking the kid out of her seat, I couldn't stop thinking about Nicu, the younger son of the dictator Ceaușescu, who spent his younger years around these streets. Many of these houses were built by a very strict Architecture Plan of the Area at the beginning of the 20th Century. While it was inhabited by the elite of the time, right after the war the Communists took the houses and transformed the whole area into a neighbourhood especially administered for the communist nomenclature. The fact that the communists, when they took power in Romania, made these houses their residences and chose this particular spot on the map was due to the fact that the communists' illegals, before 1948, were renting a lot of these houses and used them as conspiracy houses. Of course, Ceaușescu had his main residence around these parts and there are many tales of the young Nicu doing all sorts of bullshit around here as he was allowed to do them. The high school was pretty much built around his needs and the care around this neighbourhood for sanitation, supply, sports facilities and security were top notch.

Come to be fancy, stay for the food

Fior di Latte it's that kind of a place. You get to sit next to some cardboard VIP, some soccer player or his coach, some Instagram influencers and their legs and botox. If you're into that shit, the place is great. There so much fake air around that it's hard to breathe because you're afraid you're gonna look stupid, you know?

The first time I came here, I guess that it was too early in the morning for the stars to wake up, it was pretty much empty. The kid got to do her bidding. I think she even pooped and I couldn't care less, it was fucking baren. Just the 3 of us and some soccer team coach which was giving my daughter the eye and she was giving it back. Eye ping-pong. Him at the end of his life...her at the beginning. Guess money can't buy everything.

But now it was an almost full house.I have to say I was afraid of the time they were going to take in order to bring the food. We were kind of in a rush as we missed something like an hour going back and forth to some other places and we had less than two hours to wrap it up and run to the airport in order for my friend to not miss the plane.

Well, they proved me wrong and my fears were totally shallow based. In 5 minutes we had the coffee which as usual is made on their impressive machine, at the back of the bar. I tend to check out these things and the monster they have is for sure 3 times the cost of my car. They have these big mouth cups which I don't know if it's a good thing, generally speaking, as it gets the long expresso cold pretty fast, but DAMN! it helps with the flavour.

Also, the delicious lemonades which you can select from the nice iPad menu they have, have been brought together with the coffee, so no complaints there. Really, it's a magical thing to still have good and fast service even in nice restaurants in Bucharest these days. In the rest of Romania, the situation is even worse. The workforce crisis is coming back to bite our ass.

These guys don't joke when it comes to eggs. They get me fucking "eggstatic" when I see how nicely they wrap their recipes around each plate that has eggs in it. The omelettes are delicious and very well balanced when it comes to proportions of the stuff they put inside. I don't know if you ever had those flat omelettes, which on the menu they write "Vegetable omelette" and when it is served, it got 1-kilo onions and 500 grams of red pepper. There's also one or maybe two eggs around but mainly it's "Vegetables and omelette". Well, this is not the case here. The only downside is that they are maybe a little too big for my stomach (maybe also because I like to have space to try other things from the menu).

I haven't tried them but I tend to guess that all the other types of recipes with eggs (especially for the breakfast) they cook here, must be on the same level. My friend took something else (some poshed eggs?! - hope I don't write it all wrong!) and by the way, he ate the whole damn thing so I guess it was good. He had yellow stains around his mouth so, yeah...

Everything comes accompanied with different kind of croutons. Either on top or on the side so sticking your fingers in yellow goo is a must and you'll be getting to finger licking pretty fast, my friend.

I took the tuna tartar as I always wanted to try a different tartar than the normal salmon I try and cook. I was hungry but I decided to take the risk. In the worse case scenario, I would go over my daughter's meal (a deliciously looking cereal yoghurt which she ate until the burped) while I would wait for another one. But I didn't have to as the tartar was delicious too (this one may be a little too small of a portion for my taste).

I didn't go for the wine. It wasn't the right moment for me to drink at 13:00 in the afternoon, on a sunny Sunday. While others were trying the usual glass of prosecco or some chardonnay (as far as I could tell), drinking that early in the morning just isn't me at all. But I guess they must have a decent wine list. I don't think it's something great though. You don't go here for the wine, if you ask me.

Of course, this is not a cheap place and the normal mortal soul wouldn't go here every fucking Monday morning. It's a place to enjoy on a nice morning, while trying to forget about the next fucking day (which is Monday by the way, in case you go visiting, traditionally, on a god blessed Sunday) and spend something like 30$ for 2 omelettes, some yoghurt, maybe some dessert, some good coffee and maybe a nice lemonade.

Ok, make it 35$.

Still, I think it's worth it.

Posted also on my blog www.ddma.ro, a place on the world wide web where I'm trying to promote Steemit, my writings and my country. In that order. I post through the @steempress-io plugin and I make my life easier (writing and formatting in Wordpress is much easier than on steemit.com or busy.org).