Restaurant Kibe in #Bosnia Dishes up Delicious Roasted Lamb and Touring the Market

Finally! It’s Friday. I swear it was the longest week
EVAH! I don’t think I’ve been happier it was a Friday in a while.
Usually it’s just another day to me. But today! MAN was I
happy! I seriously needed some weekend rest.

Today was inventory day. Yup.
We found issues. More issues than we had with the other items we
reviewed. Thankfully, it’s an easy fix. Just redo the inventory and
dispose of the excess. And is there some interesting excess.

We had 7 pm reservations at Kibe. Kibe is on the side of the mountain. Literally.
It was interesting trying to get UP the mountain in this little stick
shift car we were in. Parking was easy,
throw it in neutral and back into the space.
Once we parked, we still had to climb a considerable incline to get to
the restaurant.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I have a headache today.
It’s not a good one, either. It’s
one of those if I don’t stay on top of it it can be a migraine type
headache. Yeah. Not good.
So, I’m a bit quieter today. I’m
a bit introverted today. I’m a bit
anti-social today. And H is getting on
my nerves a bit today with her defensiveness.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m responsible for program vehicles,
then I would want to make sure they’re inventoried correctly. Just sayin.

Anyway.

Looks pretty darn tasty, right? Well, it was! The veggies weren’t mush. The rice had good flavor. The chicken was a little dry, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I wanted a sammy, but didn’t see them on the menu. Apparently, I could have had one if I wanted. Oh well.

We met with some people at the embassy. We had some questions from the staff there regarding a few things that had occurred and wanted to make sure it was preventable in the future. After all that inventory, we hungry. So, we at the cafeteria in the embassy. It was interesting to see what was offered for lunch as opposed to what I have seen in the Bogota embassy. I had some veggies with rice and few little pieces of chicken.

After work, we all piled into D’s little car and headed to
the Bašèaršija, which is the main market place on the
old part of Sarajevo. There’s Turkish
coffee sets a plenty. There’s pashminas
and souvenirs. There’s anything and
pretty much everything you could want at this market. Well, all but an authentic doll and a tea
towel. *shrugs*

We wander around
the market for quite a while. I
purchased some coffee for me and S, and Dad and R. I bought some magnets for the CWs. I think that’s about it. I was looking at the artwork, but didn’t find
anything I really wanted.

D ducked into this
little store that was JAM PACKED full of people. Must have been a good place to be! She picked up some Turkish delight type
candies that were fabulous! The desserts
here are sweet but not tooth painfully sweet like in the States. I don’t know how many times I can say that,
but it’s really true.

I took a few
pictures in this place. It smelled
A-mazing! I mean, A-MAZING! The spices and nuts mixed with the sweets. It was a treasure trove of nibbles to
enjoy. I probably could have spent quite
a while in that shop and spent quite a bit in that ship if it weren’t for the
limitations on what can be brought back into the States by the FDA. *pout*

I think those are
some baby okra? That’s what they looked
like, anyway. There were bags and bags
of spices and herbs ready to be picked up.
I couldn’t make out all the ingredients.
They were in Bosnian. We didn’t
have much time at that, or else I would have latched onto D and asked her what
everything was. And again, it was JAM
PACKED with people.

Next thing we
know, it’s 6:30 and we need to high tail it to Kibe. This is the type of place that you NEED to
make a reservation. They only cook a set
amount of meat every day and you could easily miss out if you don’t request meat
for your table. I’m not sure how that
works, but we had ressies with meat.

We set out to
Kibe, but made a small pit stop at the larger wine and cheese shop, that are
friends with D. I was supposed to attend
a wine tasting there next week. More on
that later. L and N bought more
Rakja. I looked at the wine, tasted an
apple rakja, and then went to look at all the salts and herb mixes they
had. I was interested in the Persian
blue salt. I’ll have to see if I can
find that here. Maybe myspicesage.com
has it? Dunno. It looked really interesting and for some
reason I’m enamored of sea salt lately.

Now we’re off the
Kibe. We climb the hill to the
restaurant. It’s a rather steep
incline. I have no idea how these women
walk up such things in heels. That just
blows my mind. BUT they do, including
D. I was thrilled to have my flats
on. LOL

The restaurant isn’t all that big. There is an upstairs, but
the section we were in had about 12 – 15 tables in it? I can see immediately why it’s a MUST to eat
here. The view. OMG the view is AMAZING! Holy!
And it was a nice, clear night.
We could easily see the lights of the city below us. It looked fabulous!

View, steep hill, roasting lamb, roasting lamb, view

Out on the same
patio you can see them roasting a leg. A
whole leg. Like, almost hoof and
all. This is the meat that’s on the menu
and you DO NOT want to miss out on the meat.
It smelled fabulous and my mouth was drooling. Which is interesting, because I’m not a huge
fan of lamb. I’ve had it a few times,
but only enjoyed it once. We’ll see how
it goes tonight.

Klepe, appetizers (veal in cream sauce, meatball, veal stuffed
dumplings, sauteed lambs liver), shopska salad, Kljukuša

We sit down and are served Kljukuša, which is a traditional dish served in most Balkan
households. It’s a hearty, easy, and
cheap dish to prepare, but it tasted fabulous! It’s potatoes, flour, and spices. That’s it. How easy is that? Being a potato person I know I’ll be making that at some point and probably soon. We nibbled on this and shopska salad, which is fabulous! Then they brought 4 appetizer dishes for us to share:

Restovana teletina – This was similar to a veal stroganoff without the tangy sour cream taste. it had that creamy goodness with a delicious wine cream sauce that was as thick as stroganoff. It also had some paprika which made it a little tinted in color.
Mesni kolačići – meatballs. These were crispy goodness topped with their version of sour cream. It’s not like our sour cream. It’s not as sour but it’s more creamy.
Klepe – These were delicious pillows of dumplings filled with ground veal. They were very tasty, and soft. I’ll be looking into making these maybe this winter.
Restovana džigerica – Liver and onions. Yes, I tried it. No. I still don’t like liver. L and N loved it.

I felt like the middle man. I wasn’t really interested in all the conversation; actually none of them. To my right, L and N were talking kids, dating, and partying so hard you either throw up and pass out or both. So not me. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve drank so much I threw up and or passed out. To my left, was program conversation and work related stuff. Now, I remind you. I said I had a headache and was feeling rather introverted tonight. I was quite fine to enjoy the food, the actions in and out of the kitchen, and the view out our window.

And now for the main course!!

LAMB! That’s a whole plate of lamb! There’s leg meat, rib meat, and organs. The left is the plate as they brought it to us. The top right is what I ate. Yes, Mom. I had lamb and LOVED it! The bottom right is what it looked like when we were done. No. It didn’t go to waste. D took it home to her family. She offered it to me, but um…I don’t have a fridge in the room? So, thank you, no. It was tempting.

I found, buried beneath the leg meat, a piece of completely crispy, almost jerky style, lamb pieces. HOLY melt in your mouth crispy lamb goodness! That is something that you will ONLY get when you roast that bad boy over open flame. I wasn’t going to share that little gem, but H found it and nibbled a few pieces, too.

Now, on this trip I was trying DESPERATELY to NOT overeat. To not stuff myself to the gills like it’s always my last meal. Except for today. THIS day. It was WELL worth the stuffed feeling when we were finished eating. The food was just THAT good and since I’m always iffy on lamb, I didn’t hesitate at showing my heffer self.

And now…dessert.

Dessert was a trio:

Pita od jabuka – Their version of apple pie. It was really tasty with a nice apple flavor. I initially thought it was a baklava, but there wasn’t phyllo crispiness to be baklava.
Slatka – Now, this is something that I cannot for the life of me find on the Internet. It’s a simple syrup or honey braised pumpkin that is cubed. It’s simply served by itself, that’s all. I’ve seen it with sweet potato, but this was pumpkin. I’m thinking a new Thanksgiving dish? *shrugs*
Kadaif – Now, this was interesting. It has a very finely shredded dough that is the crust and topping. It almost had a rice noodle texture to it? It didn’t have much flavor. It was more of a texture thing.

And then, there was rakja. Oh my. I had honey rakja. WOW. It wasn’t like a mead at all. Don’t think that. It was a honey wine of it’s own right. It was fabulous! But my head was still hurting. I was tired. I wanted to go, but H said, “Sure let’s have another round!” Yup. I was a whiny, cranky bitch. *snort*

If you’re ever in Sarajevo, Bosnia, you MUST plan on having dinner at Kibe. It’s definitely not something you should pass up. The view is AMAZING and the food is to die for! And don’t you date skip out on the honey rakja!!