Gastro Advent: This Year's Main Specialties, Part 1

However, a good number of hospitality workers participating in the fair has expanded its offer with other interesting dishes from the colorful array of food consumed on the street, as well as other traditional and less well-known dishes, even those needing long cooking and comfort food eaten with a spoon. Besides that, this year the offer of fish dishes is definitely different and better than in previous years, and vegans can also be provided for many have at least one vegan dish in their offer. All aspire in offering something different form others and to be recognizable in their offer.

We visited the Advent houses and tried to find out what good things were being cooked, baked and served in paper plates and glasses.

Granny Zorka by Colonna (Baba Zorka by Colonna)

Moreno Sambolić and his partner Diana Kreber, who manage the nearby Colonna Bar, decided to bring the warmth of a family home in their Advent house for the Christmas holidays and they are doing it by offering known classic country dishes. They put Kroštula Bakery sourdough bread into veal steaks that they bake in an electric oven and which they named (grandad’s baking lid) and thus got a superb sandwich with side dishes. Granny’s sarma also has its street food version – rolls of small sarma are inserted into the brioche pastry, and in a similar manner, they also serve an excellent sausage made from Slavonian black pig. They offer as many as five of their original hot cocktails, named after Zadar toponyms: Pet nebodera, Četiri kantuna, Tri bunara and Dvi pumpe. And one is (Granny) Baba Zorka. They have a vegan tortilla ready for vegans, and while waiting for their dish, guests can be entertained - with mini knits.

Congo Meets La Famiglia

Two Zadar restaurants have joined forces in this house: Congo from Puntamike and La Famiglia on the Peninsula, and thus decided that the main offer would be made up of classic fast-food standard combined with warm winter dishes eaten with a spoon. Besides the excellent Hot Mess burger where aged meat is rolled in cheddar cheese and original La Famiglia sauce sprinkled over it, as well as several other types of burgers, cooked dishes are a daily offer. On Monday, we tried excellent boar meat with gnocchi, and on other days the offer will be beans with sausages, young beef stew and brodetto with cuttlefish and chickpeas, cod…Interestingly, these hospitality workers are preparing completely different dishes from the offer of their regular restaurants, and it’s bull’s eye.

Little Red Riding Hood (Crvenkapica)

The well-known butcher-hospitality Mikulić family from Raštane, actually Biograd, have introduced themselves to this year’s Advent with three gastronomy lines. One is with excellent traditional Kotar divenice (sausages stuffed pork meat with boiled pork blood) that they themselves stuff and smoke according to old recipes, and the second is the fast food line with three excellent burgers named Little Red Riding Hood, Wolf and Hunter, while the third one is famous Italian finger food. In this line, there are prawns fried in tempura and what is special about this house - Italian arancini. These are balls of classic black cuttlefish risotto that are also dipped in tempura and then briefly fried. Very good, eaten standing and using only fingers. 

M&M Brothers

Brothers Rožman have decided to offer in their house classic homemade burgers and sausages. While one brother is at the service of guests coming to the house, the other stuffs and smokes Dalmatian divenice according to his own recipe. Their burger is made of baby beef meat, caramelized onions, green salad and pickles sprinkled with barbecue sauce made by their own recipe. They mixed ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, onion powder and sweet chili and acquired a burger of particular taste. 

Marvel

Ivan Šunjić transferred to the Advent house the philosophy of his Marvel pancake bar in Relja. The main offer of this house is that of sweets: waffles from a special mold in the shape of a Christmas tree filled with nutella and lino spread, then unusual and interesting Dutch mini pancakes served with marshmallow cookies, fritters and rich hot chocolate as well as mulled wine and mulled gin. Among the more serious, savory offer, Marvel specializes in breaded pancakes filled with ham, cheese and prosciutto. To accompany such an offer, it would be nice to offer guests a comic book from their childhood or at least a matinee with the projection of cartoons with Ironman, Conan or the Hulk.

Picnic

The Veki Božić team started off on their street food gastro adventure a couple of years ago with the popular food truck Picnic Migle & Fun and tasty burgers Bleckie and Snow made with aged baby beef. They conquered even the palate of the fine dining public with their sandwiches in well-cooked baby beef tongues in Kroštula Bakery pastry rolls. At this year’s Advent, they are offering excellent drinks such as mulled gin with elderberry liqueur and mulled whiskey with banana liqueur, and they have enriched the offer with two new, interesting specialties. The first one is Different Sarma, an attractive creation by Jakov Meštrović where the sarma roll has disappeared but the phenomenal taste of the old dish has remained as well as fluffy mashed potatoes. Cod strudel is this year's second hit of this house, which this team serves, of course, only on Fridays.

Slavonian enchantment (Slavonska čarolija)

The Jerković family that runs Konoba Dalmacija in Kampo Kaštelo became famous in earlier Advent fairs for their Slavonian sausages made according to well-known recipes known only by them. This year, also a tasty aroma spreads from their pork-and-potato stew, and a new type of sausage enriched with cinnamon is on offer. Even more interesting is that the Jerkovićs have correctly interpreted the philosophy of finger street food adapted to local tastes. Crispy burek rolls (of course, with baby beef) are a great discovery and are served with excellent Turkish cream. Breaded pancakes stuffed with apple and served with whipped cream are a phenomenal sweet to grab with fingers and accompanied by the drink Čoko guc, which is hot chocolate with Pelinkovac and orange.