Suspense of the Pastry
Travel Tip: Always, but always, support your rustic street vendors on the backalley ribbons of non-tourist zones. If a kiosk can survive selling wares to nearby residents, then it must be “quite okay” and non-lethal.
Stand proud in recognition that such venues remain sufficiently mysterious enough to give you that rush of adrenaline that comes from taking great risks to eat like the native.
Valid for the purist seeking authentic experiences in any city, town, and village. Braşov is no exception to your guiding principle of avoiding chains, franchises, and other tainted commodity establishments while visiting strange, far-flung lands at the outer realms of the known world.
Leave the guidebook at home and go get lost.
You may find the very purpose of your life was to set out as the intrepid explorer who would unwittingly discover the thrills of being the first alien to unearth a quaint little pastry shop and to shed the light of publicity upon it.
Most often, you’ll find it conveniently buried down a quiet, dusty street surrounded by bloc apartments filled with suspicious residents who peer out from behind protective curtains anytime their sixth sense signals the alarm that a foreigner has breeched the cartier perimeter.
For example, you just might stumble upon such a hidden gem while larking about the Florilor neighborhood of Braşov, Romania, in which case you’d be ruffling the feathers of the cloistered neurotics busily spying on your radically unfamiliar walking style in the vicinity of Str. Branduşelor, Nr. 50 A.
Like a sweet-toothed moth drawn toward the bakery’s light, your subconscious detects the cheerful colors of handcut vinyl stickers spelling out words you don’t understand as they slowly lose contact with the glass and find their edges peeling.
As your ciliary muscle relaxes, shelves upon shelves of pasteries reveal themselves to you. Language is no longer a barrier to comprehension. Step closer, stranger, and witness the menagerie of flavors unknown.
Sweet bread, the length of a forearm, smothered in chocolate may beckon. Perhaps the siren song of pastry shaped like polish pretzels will dance in the air. Then again, the sugar-dusted puffs stuffed with Turkish Delight may prove irresistible.
Of course, any red blooded American will recognize the unmistakable patriotism of apple strudel which has the honorable distinction of service as Official Pastry of Texas initiated just days after former Texas governor George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq four years ago.
Thoughtful photographers will survey all the various options on display before meditating deeply over the consequences of any given choice. Chaos theory clearly states that in such extreme circumstances space and time will crumble in the vortex of singularity, thus provoking bliss (academically referred to in Latinish flanc cu caşcaval).
Whatever the outcome of your particular adventure into the vibrant lives of kiosk food salesmanship, you can look forward to bragging to your friends and family about your predilection for cavalier approaches to comestible consumption.
A giant among mere men, you know no fear.
Never, but never, devolve into self-defeatist second guessing about why the woman behind the counter got upset by your taking pictures of the little shop. Or how it was absurd she would not divulge the name of the company despite it being painted on the outside of the building.
Don’t worry yourself trying to make sense of what her motivation could have possibly been for insisting you speak to the owner (whom she had no idea when or if he would ever come next) in order to verify the street address so you could publicize the yummy goodies on the dark and scary internet.
Instead, focus on the positive speculation about whether the merchants likely kept the money local by hiring their neighbor Mihai to defend them once you belatedly find out the company was suspended by national authorities concerned about the dramatically unsanitary conditions used to prepare the very pastry you ate.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Delightful-looking treats! Say, I bet you could use ole Marvin Zindler (Eye Witness News with the “rat & roach reports”).
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Marvin Zindler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Zindler
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Damn, you’re right… I had meant to, but ultimately forgot to, link to SLIME in the ICE Machine by the ever famous MARvin ZINdler EYE Witness News!
February 24th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Before your intrepid explorers really get lost: north is to the left in that map. That had me confused for a few seconds. You could have stolen a better one. ;)
February 24th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Mmmm. Yummy looking pastry!
February 24th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Apple strudel is the official pastry of Texas? Maybe the poor woman thought you want to sue.
February 24th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
CO - Mmm, yes, you’re right. There aren’t too many good choices for Brasov maps. Or maps for Romanian cities, in general. What are all these programmers up to? Hai, sa dezvoltare!
1. Create popular AJAXy map utility of Romania in Magyarul, Romana, and English.
2. ???
3. Sell out to megacorporations for zillions!
As for the woman, if she thought I was going to sue then she must have known I was from America.
Lumi - Mine certainly was but after finding out the dark secret, I now have buyer’s remorse.
February 24th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Speaking of maps, ever tried to see if you can get a GPS which covers Romania? I can only assume that the demand isn’t high enough, or perhaps in relation to your Apple story, they are trying to work out exactly how much they can squeeze out of the average Romanian.
February 24th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Hi! Thanks for sharing this. It reminded me of a small pastry shop in Debrecen, Hungary, called the Mandula Cukra’szda, that was on a small, quiet side street near the university there. I believe that the word “Mandula” means “almond” in English. Best wishes!
February 24th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
The hard part isn’t the AJAXy stuff. It’s the part where some guys slave over a paper map with a digitizer tracing geographical features. For some reason (I’m not really into GIS) that method seems to be prefered over the easy way of taking a GPS device, going on the field and recording the breadcrumbs.
There is a digital map of Romania (I don’t know how good it is) that can be loaded into Garmin devices: http://www.romaniadigitala.ro/
Perhaps now that we’re in the EU, Google will show some interest. Hungary seems to be covered. They stopped at the romanian border.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Alex - I haven’t actually tried, but I did bump into some hearsay where a few people were discussing the GPS capability of certain mobile phones and they were lamenting that “none of the providers” offer GPS service.
I don’t know first hand. You know the military must have it, so someone’s running service in Romania.
Martha - I’ve never been to Debrecen, actually. I just did some quick searching for photos and it looks very lovely. I had no idea it was so close to Romania, so now it’s on my list to go there. Maybe I’ll find the same pastry shop? That would be a small world.
CO - Alright, I’ll draw a map on paper using my pencil. I’ll email you the PDF in an hour. You get the AJAX stuff ready!
Heh. You’re right, of course. Someone would have to go to the trouble and expense of drafting new maps in a vector-based open-standard format. I’d much rather see Romania pay for a “public works” project like that than throw away royal handouts, let alone any other improvements to basic services or infrastructure.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Very Interesting to look at the way things are done over in Romania!
February 27th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Hi! Check out http://www.kismandula.hu/elerhetosegek.php (towards the bottom of the page is a picture of the outside of Mandula Cukra’szda). The owners have opened another shop in Debrecen called the Kismandula (Little Mandula). I have not visited the Kismandula. Best wishes!
February 27th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
AmFri - Not only are the pastries fairly large (at most shops, anyway) but they sell for something around 50 cents. Pretty groovy, eh?
Martha - Wow, thanks! That makes it a lot easier to find with both the address (Ember Pál utca 23) and a photo of what I should be looking for. I’ll definitely make it there. I’m not sure when (last time I promised something it was almost a year) but I’ll get there and reference this post, when I do.