lazy day ends with fish?

My day off yesterday was lazy and relaxed. After another late night out with my Kazakhstani friend Viktor (yes, I was originally wrong about him being Russian, though it’s his mother tongue, and he has family from both countries), I again felt a cold coming on, though I set my alarm clock for only six hours of sleep—too many things to try and catch up on. I woke up at 10:30, hit snooze, and brought my phone back into bed with me. My flat gets little natural light, so what felt like a plausible 10:40 turned out to be 2:00pm. Argh!: I had made a mess of my plans.

I spent most of the afternoon with Miloš, lazily making our way around town. I had my brunch finally at 4:30, the Serbian staple of pasulj sa mesom (beans with meat—I’m still gassy J). We visited one of Belgrade’s newest shopping malls. We toyed with the idea of an evening movie, but the choices were sparse and, frankly, awful. I finally got to walk through a Serbian supermarket, and stocked up on muesli for breakfast. The fresh produce section was unsurprisingly thin given the surplus of meat products that are so popular with the locals. The dairy section was surprisingly focused on processed and ultra-pasteurized given the country’s agrarian pride. I couldn’t stomach looking too closely at the meat section: there is sadly not yet any demand for the kinds of meats Milu is traditionally raising, and I honestly eat way too much meat here.

After some downtime at home I finally met with Vlad for dinner. We went to a Montenegrin family-owned restaurant at a weird out-of-the-way intersection. Inside was decorated like something from centuries past, and the servers wore weird sailor outfits. Their claim to fame is the quality of their seafood, brought in daily and undeclared (apparently the tax collectors enjoy eating here too) from the docks of a small bay in Montenegro. We started with beautiful local (to the Montenegrin coast) clams simply grilled and doused in olive oil. Simple. Wonderful. Alongside was a scallop, gratineed with Parmigiano. A sad thing, and a wasted life, given the dominance of the cheese. Our main course were a couple of small fish, roasted whole in olive oil among fall vegetables. One was a rare Mediterranean fish called Cavala, the other a similar but more common Dorado. It was so simple and so delicious. The vegetables were permeated with the wonderful sweetness of the fish and the olive oil. Everything was perfectly seasoned. The fish was impeccably fresh. The wine was local and perfectly-suited to the food. This was old-school fish cookery, and is what this restaurant excels at. The manager (Vlad’s friend) joined us for a sip of very old Guatemalan rum (Zacapa 23 year old, for those who care) after dinner, and we left feeling wonderfully buzzed with the high of a great meal. Sometimes it’s the simpler preparations that make a meal really work.