A couple of weeks ago, A. and I went to Art Kitchen a new Greek restaurant in Sofia. We liked it.

I think that A. read about the restaurant in<a href="http://www.programata.bg/" target="_blank"> Programata</a> but when I look at Programata there doesn't seem to be a review of the restaurant nor would one know that Art Kitchen serves Greek food as the only thing on the <a href="http://www.programata.bg/?p=71&amp;l=2&amp;c=1&amp;id=6897" target="_blank">Programata website under Art Kitchen</a> is an address and phone number.  So I assume that A. heard about the restaurant some other way.

I am not super familiar with Greek food. I've been to Thasos a couple of times and I've been to Thessaloniki three or four times. I like what I've eaten when in Greece but much of the food seems to share pretty strong ties to Bulgarian food. I'd point to the yogurt, the cheese, a love of dill as a spice and garlic as a kitchen staple to make my case. Sure there are differences but on a whole Greek food isn't shockingly different from Bulgarian food.

But Art Kitchen got off to a great start with Mythos beer and a fairly concise menu. I really appreciate it when a menu is a manageable size to read through and when there aren't too many choices. First, this signals to me that they take their food seriously and that are happy to focus on preparing a few dishes well rather than trying to do everything poorly and second, it makes it that much easier for me to figure out what to order.

I always struggle when it comes to deciding what to eat. I hate having to settle on a single dish. <!--more-->

I love the use of olive oil and the different kinds of olives in Greece. I regularly order seafood when in Thasos because it seems like the thing to do--being on an island and all. Oh and when in Greece, a girl must order a Greek salad. This said, I like Greek food, I am just not 100% sure what makes it <em>real</em> Greek food--what makes it authentic.

Anyhow enough on my vague musings on Greek food.

A. and I ended up ordering a few dishes to share. We began with two starters--a salmon spread (or at least I think it was salmon) and fried zucchini with a yogurt dill sauce.  This was followed by homemade pasta with seafood.

I was really happy with everything. Truthfully I was afraid that the salmon spread was going to be too fishy for me but it was anything but. <em>Phew</em>. In fact, I liked it a lot and I'd definitely order it again.

The fried zucchini was less interesting. The zucchini had been sliced very thinly into zucchini-coins and as such when they were fried there was more batter on the rounds off zucchini than vegetable. A. was distinctly disappointed and said something to the effect of: in Greece they never cut them into rounds--usually they are strips. Based on what I've seen and eaten in Greece this is true and given the batter to zucchini ratio there was very little zucchini in each bite to taste.

Oh well, these things happen.

The homemade pasta and seafood dish was tasty. The pasta was great and the seafood sauce was seafood heavy but this was nicely balanced with tomatotos