Our family had the experience to taste Bulgarian food at the newly opened Vintage Blugaria Restaurant & Bar located at Tanjung Bunga, Penang recently. This is the first Bulgarian restaurant that makes its debut in Penang and is located right beside Ingolf's Kneipe German Restaurant.
The big signboard of this restaurant first caught our attention when we were dining at Ingolf's for their special pork knuckle that is serve only on Wednesday (yet to post the review). At that time, it was still under renovation.
A mezzanine floor is constructed in this shoplot to create more dinning space. Walking up the stairs lead you to the upper floor which has a dining area and a bar whereby diners get to enjoy a drink before the meal. Downstairs is another spacious dining area.
Bulgarian cuisines is influence by the Greek, Middle East and Turkish. The food are mostly grilled or sauteed. There is a wide range of mouth watering dishes to choose from the menu. We started off the dinner with the Shkembe Chorba, which is basically a tripe soup. It is very different from our local tripe soup. Do bring yourself to try it, it is very tasty!
Shepherd’s salad - a salad consisting of a selection of fresh vegetables, ham, button mushrooms, hard cheese and olives garnished with grated hard boiled egg accompanied with some dressing.
Platter Bulgari - Bulgaria trio consisting sausages, meat patties and chicken steak accompanied by a large portion of boiled potatoes, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. This plate of mouth watering grilled meats of ground pork patties (rich in herbs), sausages (with lots of spices) and chicken steak is a must try!
Steak Bulgarian style … tenderized chicken steak topped with creamy mushroom sauce comes with the same large portion of mixed vegetable. The chicken meat is tender.
We had an enormous Balkan platter which has a trio of lightly sautéed chicken livers and onion, gizzards in butter and veal tripe with mushrooms and herbs. It is a very fragrant dish. Recommended to share this dish around.
Photos of the cozy interior dining area and a shot of me with Silviya Georgieva who is one of the partner. I had a chat with her and she told us that they had the the interior of the restaurant decorated quite similar to the Bulgarian country side cottage. They even had a Bulgarian chef brought over here to head the kitchen. She did hint that they might introduce more dishes in the near future such as tarator (cold cucumber soup) and banista (pastry).
This restaurant gives Penangites the opportunity to explore the many flavors of Bulgarian cuisines. Definitely worth checking out this place. This dinner was indeed a brand new culinary experience for us. We also bumped into Lingzie who was dining there with her family, Penang definitely is a small island!
For reservations, call 04 8981890.
Address : 1E Jalan Sungai Kelian
11200 Tanjong Bungah
Penang
I came across this 'beauty' in the restaurant, guess where does it leads to?
47 comments
Hi CK... Hah..thanks for this info! Sure it's going to be another hotspot! I'm game for Bulgarian dishes!
Pixen - I love to hear your food review on this place. Do share with me...
Hey, I think you & Lingzie have the same fondness of taste.
Cariso - It is a coincidence...both of us at the same place and the same time.
The food is sometime new in Penang and is quite tasty.
Haha yea Penang is indeed small!! :)
This looks like another good place for dining.
Oooo..really, just next to Ingolf's Kneipe??!! Whatever happened to the cake shop or the Guardian next to Infgolf (my memory's not that good anymore:p)
Seems like another interesting experience...but I do hope there's some seafood...I love fish...hehe...
Hmmmm...Bulgarian next to German, who knows...the whole row may be filled up by more international or exotic cuisines yeah...hehehe!
P.S: How come I never seem to run into any of you? *pouts*
Wah more and more western restaurant is blooming in Tanjung Bungah area. I hope the whole stretch there become like United Nation. Lol .... no need to travel to so many places to get diff country foods. 1 stop dining is not a bad idea.
By the way this Bulgarian foods are are Halal or Non Halal? Do they serve pork?
email2me: hey, is non halal la, CK mentioned "ground pork patties" fromt the post :P ...see, you dont really read it propally...haa, CK...punish him!!
Wooo, is a good news for food hunter again! was the bulgarian food good?
Wow..didnt know that there is another new restaurant beside Ingolf. Thanks for the review. Definitely will give it a try :)
Bulgarian cuisine, never tried. i need to expose myself to more different type of cuisine from different country.
from the photos, seem the chicken with creamy mushroom sauce is yummy wor.... the sauce really creamy la.
the "beauty" should be lead you to the ladies. am i correct? haha.
Gill Gill : Don't be like that la ... I mixed up Bulgarian and Middle East Food ... In KL we had a restaurant called Tarbush ... I thought this is the same ... Lol ... today had too much pork ... Bak Kut Teh for brunch ... so don't want to think of pig .... burp ....
Good recommendation, food, wine, Bulgarian decor and by the way I have never tried Bulgarian meal but the long steak or was it chicken looks Lebanese.
Buzzingbee - This area seems to be getting more and more popular...going international already...great.
Christy - The cake shop and guardian is still around...this restaurant took over the mini-market.
Who knows, we might run into each other one of this days!
Email2me - Your idea sounds great...it is nice to see the whole row of shops developing. We get to taste food from different countries...haha
The food is NON-HALAL, with plenty of pork dishes...
Gillgill - All of us enjoyed the meal...especially the pork patties and sausages.
Food Promotions - It was opened to the public on 29th September. The place was packed when I was there.
Allenooi - Give this place a try, you might like it. You are right about the 'beauty', Allen...you are such a genius...haha
Email2me - Its alright to get mixed up...at times,it happens to me too :) Do forgive Gillgill la...ok! cincai cincai.
Jencooks - This is also my first time savouring this type of food...not too sure about the looks of the steak, but very sure it was tasty!
Hie seems that I'm the only one unhappy about the food at the new place. I went in for lunch on Thursday all excited to try out Bulgarian dishes and came out dissapointed. We ordered steak bulgarian style, pork ribs and another dish which I could not recall the name (something like meat patty). After 10 minutes I was told that they ran out of pork ribs. Then they mix up the dishes and told us about the mistake when we were half way through our meal....and the steak was dry and a bit hard. To make up for the mistake they served 3 complimentary Baklava. Like what Lingzie said, it's drenched in syrup and served cold. For me it's too sweet and also a bit hard. Maybe the chef was still experimenting around during lunch time...
Aunty CK,
Your arch nemises!
May be I will bring Gill Gill there to celebrate her getting older, next week!
if no good, you pay for my bill!
Anonymous - I did not order the Baklava as I knew it is very sweet since I have tasted it on my Melbourne trip. Suprisingly, those were not drench in syrup as you can see from my link below...
http://tmytmz.blogspot.com/2007/10/melbourne-food.html
Some mix-up might bound to happen in a new restaurant... hope the management will improve and be more organise.
Jason Wong - Oh... our dear gill is getting older next week...hmmm. I am sure she will have a nice time with you. Hope both of you have a nice weekend :)
Hi CK, I was there this evening :-D But there were too many people even though I was there early after placed a table of 6. My table missed a soup (managed to inform Silviya about it bcos I was billed) and my fries were cold... :-( My meals was very good so were my sister's orders. The Mushroom soup was a bit watery and I don't have the chance to have my desserts bcos my toddler was upset his high chair was smaller than him and cold fries which caused stern stares by next table woman (I don't blamed her if she's single but she has to understand my situation as a mother,just back from grocery,rush hours & no time for make-over).
BUT I'm going back again maybe in the late afternoon brunch on weekdays. Saturday or weekends always crowded. Overall, the place is gorgeous and spacious. I love the concept especially the bar & smoking room are upstairs bcos smoke goes up...
Food is combination of Greek, Turkish & Eastern EU. I cooked a lot of Greek, Turkish and EU food so, I don't have much problem with Bulgariska köket.
I will visit the place again soon and I forgave them for serving cold food to me, being new/just open resto :-D BTW, I think their presence caused a stir at Ingolf's.
ck, i tell you...when i reach back penang, i will definitely use your blog as my guidance in searching for thumbs-up food...you can be crowned as a food critic already!!! hehe :) :)
btw, i see that there's lot of comments regarding the newly open bulgarian restaurant..i think should be given another chance as they're still new and in the process of adaptation and experimenting...don't let the first experience spoilt it (although it's trully vital that ppl tends to remember the first encounter)
Pixen - Looks like there are a few unpleasant encounters in this new restaurant. Hopefully they will get things back in order after this first week of business. Fortunately, everything went well during my visit.
The idea of placing the bar & smoking room upstairs is good as the entrance won't be too smokey and noisy. I will visit the place again as there are so much more dishes that I wish to try out. It would be nice to get feed back from you too.
Tau Sar Phneah - I am just sharing my review just like the rest of the bloggers but I am glad you find it interesting and useful. You sounded a bit too kua cheong...haha
CK,
Nice 1. I can't wait to call them up to reserve a table. Going to do it..:)
SamYeap - Do share your reviews with me...as I am planning a revisit soon :)
could this be the 3rd blogger gathering venue?
heard about yours and lingzie visit, definitely will drive us there with the post u had....
will try as much as dishes as possible.. hee hee
Steak Bulgarian style looks yummy. I want to try that out. Btw there is another restaurant like russian style located just opposite the esso station at tunjung bungah too. I tried once not bad, wanna revisit and blog about that.
New Kid on the Blog - We have decided to have potluck for the 3rd gathering...hope you can join us this time.
Penangtuapui - Definitely would like to see your review of the dishes as three tuapui's can eat lots more...haha
Steven Goh - Remember to make a reservation as it is often packed.
I have been to the other restaurant that you mentioned. The person that operates the place is a German lady and she serves good roast pork ribs...I did a post on that too.
interesting, Bulgarian food. never heard of, and never tried. but Ingolf is good! reasonable as well.
thanks CK Lam, your blog somehow paves way for us to elegant diners in Pg.
OMG! The food is so yummy lol. I wanna go try.. hehe
J2kfm - Majority of Penangites have never heard of Bulgarian food if not for this new restaurant.
Definitely is a must try. It is packed even on weekdays. Good sign that Penangites are willing to try out this new cuisine.
Allie - There are plenty more succulent pork dishes. There is the pork ribs that I wanted to order but it was sold out that night.
The food looks awesomely delicious!
Pot luck for third gathering? Oh, have to think of what to bring then, hehe...
first time im hearing about bulgarian food. we hardly know about the country haha... yet its interesting that its food is here! :)
Big Boys Oven - This delicious food with the nice ambience ... makes a lovely night out. Do try it out in your Penang trip this coming Saturday.
Little Inbox - The food for the potluck is western food.
Quachee - Penangites are lucky that they set up this restaurant in Penang :) Make sure you try out this speciality on your next Penang trip.
oh it's my dad's friend's shop!! i'm trying to get him to give a special discount to all bloggers!!! hope i'll manage to get
Duckie - Wow...that is great. It would be nice if all the bloggers get to savour the food with a discount. Waiting to hear the good news from you :)
Oiii....couldn't wait, Andrew and I will definitely try this place...
Great review !
Ying
Alamak, pot luck ah???
Stickerlabels - I hope both of you will like the food in this cosy place. Would be nice to see your review.
It leads to the Ladies...or maybe the swimming pool?
Exotic food indeed.
Wow, Bulgarian food - something that has never crossed my mind.
Hmm..it looks interesting and it certainly looks to satisfy all the meat eaters out there :)
Shall muster up some courage to try out the place one day, though the thought of having innards doesn't sit too well :-) The steaks look great though.
Wow - great review. Excellent choice for a carnivore like me!
Kayameekoo - Try the rest of the dishes since you dont really like to have the innards. Plently of choices of fish, chicken and meat.
Do visit my new url at...
http://www.what2seeonline.com
Teddy - Nice of you to drop by my blog. Do feel free to surf my blog again but do link it to my new url at ...
http://www.what2seeonline.com
Yer, non-halal... then cannot go with my bf adi. He cannot eat beef and don't eat pork! I eat both of them but have to give some respect to him while i'm out dining with him hehe.
Hi CK,
Thanks for all the Delicious Reviews. It certainly makes it easier for us seek out new places by just visiting your blog whenever we are hungry.
You've got a nice music to go with this wonderful site. Mind sharing who the singers are and its title?
Joey Saw - There are plenty of other items too. Go and have a look, there is bound to be some dishes suitable for both of you. Do check out for new places at my new domain at http://www.what2seeonline.com
Darren - Thanks for dropping by this old blog of mine. I will be closing this old one very soon. Kindly visit my new domain at
http://www.what2seeonline.com
for more new updates.
The title of the song which you mentioned is known as - cry on my shoulder.
Oh Yes, I've gone into the new site and had it bookmarked!
Cheers!
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