Once in a while, though not frequently, a new player comes on the Braşov scene who really does merit some attention. A piece of snail mail spam lands in your bloc mailbox announcing the latest thing. You start out a little skeptical about the new kid on the block, but at some point curiosity gets the best of you. Fingering the paper gently, you’re tempted to throw it out. It’s kept — nay, discarded — until an intoxicating evening of Mondial Bere weakens your resolve.

Now, it’s well-known that Blue Viking is the king of pizza delivery in Braşov. They’re famous from Poiana to Saturn, from Schei to the gara. With non-stop delivery, tasty ingredients, and reasonable prices, Blue Viking is the choice of locals all across Braşov. Pork loving tourists should try the vulcano pizza.

A select few competitors offer delivery during the day and evening. One or two tried non-stop, but failed. BV in BV is pretty much the only game in town for your late night laziness. Until now.

I’m not sure what a “Swedish kebab” might be, but free delivery and free salad can sound pretty hard to pass up depending the time of day and your particular state of mind! Clearly, when Alexander Graham Bell invented of the telephone he was thinking of pizza livrare.

Since I wasn’t alone, a single pizza couldn’t possibly be enough food. The fata working the phone at Swedish House seemed to have some grasp as to what her job might entail, unlike the horribly inconsistent employees of Blue Viking who may or may not have any clue what in the world you’re talking about depending on whether or not they’ve managed to get any sleep during their 48 shift.

Delivery went fairly smooth. The very young man (”Excuse me, but does your mother know you’re out tonight? And whose driving license did you steal?”) managed to find his way upstairs with a complete order intact, unlike the often-forgetful employees of Blue Viking. Three pizzas with correct ingredients, including the sauce packaged on the side as requested, plus the three free salads. Nice start.

The salads were well-received. They were actually fresh! (Non-locals take note: your salads here will not always be fresh.) A bit of varza with thyme, perhaps dill, and some other unidentified ingredients. Crunchy and rather tasty, albeit small.

Shall we move on to pizza? Check out the standard-fare, middle-of-the-road margarita.

Meh. Pretty basic vittles, nothing fantastic. It was the exact typical size of nearly all Romanian pizzas. It had marinara sauce and cheese (sporadically strewn about). The dough was probably the thinnest I’ve had in Romania. Given how little pizza dough comes on the average pizza, I’ll leave to imagine exactly how paper thin this particular variety was. Yet… the taste of the crust was quite okay.

Quick segue, since I know you’re all wondering, to figure out exactly what is a Swedish kebab. It looks to come in four different varieties, including chifla (my American friend: think of a large fluffy hamburger bun) and lipie (my American friend: lebanese flatbread). Frankly, the prices were very decent considering the free delivery. Too bad I don’t eat carne de porc.

Now that I have you distracted, perhaps you’d care to see the rest of the menu? It’s got really great selection, y’all. A far superior range of choice for you to mull over while judging a round of beerbased competive drinking.

I’m confident my family would attest to my long-standing proclivity toward ordering from the exotic end of the menu, with rare exception. I may not be Alton Brown, but I can usually spot what might be good and what might be bad for many palattes tempted to try the unfamiliar.

Take, for example, this other concoction made by Swedish House. I mean these guys call themselves a pizza and kebab joint, right? What could be better, then, than combining the two into one? You betcha! Order yourself the “Swedish House” pizza. It’s more or less a margarita with a kebab on top. Pizza with pork kebab meat, red onions, fresh lettuce, black pepper, a kebab sauce, and cartofi prajiţi, of course.

Apparently, the amazing-looking pizza was quite okay. The kebab sauce didn’t work too well for the particular consumer, in this case. Nonetheless, it seemed a successful amalgamation of two fastfoods. Ah, but I don’t eat pigs, so I couldn’t be 100% sure. No, my adventurous notions took me in an entirely different direction.

Oh, yeah, baby! The “Amore” pizza from Swedish house was an absolutely brilliant combination of chicken, peanuts, bananas and curry sauce. Hoooo, boy, I tell you whut! It’s gotta be, without a doubt, one of the best pizzas ideas I’ve ever had the pleasure of handling. In fact, it may be the best. I certainly plan to try re-creating it at home.

I can still taste it. Fantastic.

Tourists to Braşov should definitely weigh carefully between choosing to order between local hero Blue Viking and the creative geniuses at Swedish House (who, if you noticed, use blue viking imagery in their print collateral, har har). If you have the time and inclination, do both. We’ll cover the goodness of Blue Viking another time, here at Romerican, but one should keep in mind that Swedish House if very price-competitive, offers free salads, better employees, and more exciting choices.

Did I mention the curry sauce was divine? You better believe I can get excited about curry when it’s done perfectly. Some kind of curry masala-esque type thing. Mmmm. Gorgeous. Authentic. Surprising!

So, the next day, when I remembered there was some sos leftover, I quickly figured out a way to enjoy it.

My Bulgarian cat statue overlooked a scrumptuous meal comprised of scrambled eggs in sos curry. Fab! Some lovely whole wheat toast slathered in homemade currant jam. Due to a shortage of proper orange juice, I substituted a tall, cold glass of Mirinda (Americans, think: orange creamsicle). Obviously, curry eggs was the highlight. A nice reminder of the brilliance I’d tasted just the night before.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Food, Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.