As most of you know we have a few favorite spots we visit more than once, and since our first trip to Ambar just over 4 months ago, we decided to return for many reasons.
We expected the kinds to come and they love the flatbreads (although they both cancelled), it's only $35 per person for as many smallplates as can possibly consume, and I think the 6 of us must have downed over 30 for sure (so the math tells me that we paid under $6-7 per plate, if not less and the unique Balkan wines are pretty good as well.
We ordered two Macedonian wines to start from Stobi: a superb Rose($30-s range) with hints of lemon and tartness and a full bodied red Vranac Ventas(about $60--too high!) which still was not as good as out third wine, the 2011 Bulguriana Cabernet/Syrah blend from the Thracian Valley which was jammy and full bodied and rang in at way under $40 a bottle. We had to order some of the fabulous dishes we had last time that we adored (many are pictured on FB, along with some fun photos of our group featuring the two tenors and a travel agent with spouses!):
Almond Chicken is always a hit here as are the Kebabs with their pile of spicy paprika for dipping. The spreads are divine as are the breads, but we didn't get those huge fluffy pita-like breads this time. the spreads on the chef's three choices are a beet tzatziki, urebnes cheese and lamb pate (very reminiscent of rillettes).
Meat pies are fab as are the Stuffed Sour Cabbage with melting Pork Belly comes with creamy mashed potatoes with chives, but don't skip the super veggie salads such as Quinoa/Broccoli and Slaw.
Steak Tartare here is done well, although I skip the raw onions, and the Smoked Salmon spread was also a super new dish for us. White Veal Soup is creamy and lemony, think the Greek Ovgolemono with meat base instead of chicken. Flatbreads seemed to come nonstop with just white ones, sudzuk sausage akin to pepperoni, and even one with grilled shrimp which I loved.
Mushroom Pilav treats the rice like a star, but it came with the unsatisfying Beef Goulash (although the spaetzle are nice on that).
If you want fish, the trout is superb with an almost crispy skin atop scalloped potatoes, but the calamari is not a winner, but then not rally bad, just soso. The Grilled Shrimp come over what is called a corn puree and I would simply say its Balkan grits with a hint of that salty feta-like cheese (urebnes, zlatibor or other?).
Veggies here also star with Brussels Sprouts and Grilled Asparagus always winning top honors.
There's something for everyone and nobody goes home hungry for sure, and we were there for over three hours, even though they warned us we could not keep the table over two!
We did skip dessert as they charge extra and we decided last time there were no winners and having more small plates is SO much better!
