Hint
May 26th, 2010 | 
Author: Recommended by many readers, this market is one of the few real organic Earth Markets in the world. So if you don’t know what branza cu carbune vegetal, busuioc cu branza de burduf, hrean cu afine, gem de caise cu dovleac, or miere de rapita means or what they are, this week-end (May 15/16) you have the chance to find out! Open Saturday (9:00-17:00) and Sunday (9:00-14:00)
Being new in town at the beginning of our stay in Bucharest, we considered that one of the most amazing and authentic things in town are the farmers’ markets with their seasonal products. While some of them are little (even in front of supermarkets) and some are larger, all of them are worth being explored! Here we prepared a list of markets for you in our Online Guide- if you find a new one, please let us know!
http://www.citycompass.ro/en/cityguide/54-shopping-and-hypermarkets/141-markets-.html
Are you a bit unsure about exactly who Mircea Eliade was? Are you curious about the ‘real’ facts about Vlad Tepes or Dimitrie Cantemir? Well, look no further. There is a new blog-initiave from the Swedish Association ACTIV SPIRIT that offers very useful information both in English and Romanian about Romanian “superlatives”! They include Romanians from the world over, who have contributed to world history in ways you might be surprised to discover. Click here to read all the rofiles! http://romaniansuperlatives.blogspot.com
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Fox’s Bar Review- Ethic Wines
Ethic Wines
ADDRESS: Banu Antonache Nr 55
PHONE: +40 0722 388 239
This week as a change of scene I am commenting on a wine shop rather than a wine bar. Ethic Wines is an independent wine shop based opposite Floreasca fruit and vegetable market. The shop is owned and run by Cornel and Lucian, a pair of wine enthusiasts who appreciate the grape.
They carry a wide and diverse range of wines made up of around 50% Romanian and 50% imported wines including French, Italian, Chilean and Australian varieties. For me the interest lies in their fantastic selection of Romanian produce.
Romania is now producing some very inovative and exciting wines and experimenting with blends that you will find nowhere else in the world. A good example of this is a wine I picked out last week with the guidence of Lucian.
It was the Solo Quinta created by wine maker Hartley Smithers at the Recas Estate. A blend of Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Feteasca Regala and Muscat makes a very different and fabulous glass of wine.
The range of Romanian wines starts with many of the commercial labels to be found in the supermarket, all priced very honestly, going up to the small production high quality wines. In an article I read recently, it was saying that the only places left in the world where you can drink very good quality wines at very reasonable prices are Romania and Moldova, and I am making the most of it!
Cornel also owns a vineyard, so there is often the home produce available to taste and to buy. His Feteasca Regala is a good simple crisp dry white, which could invite itself to any BBQ on a hot summers day. If you buy it directly through the store, it is a bargain!
So the moral of my story is, whilst in Romania drink Romanian, and do give Ethic Wines a try.
Fox’s Bar Review: Sky Bar
Sky Bar
PHONE: +40 0724 759 227
suggest the girls watch there heels on the gravel as you wouldn’t want to spoil those Choo’s.
Fox’s Bar Review: La Belle Epoque
La Belle Epoque
ADDRESS: AV. RADU BELLER NR. 6, DOROBANTI
TEL: 0762472468
Hiking season!
Springtime is about to start and there are great areas for hiking not too far from Bucharest. A great time for a weekend escape from busy Bucharest. Get into nature after a long winter break and discover some amazing places in the countryside. I would like to introduce them one by one. So here is the list:
- The classic and always crowded escape to Prahova Valley (Sinaia, Busteni, Predeal)
- A little less crowded with some spectacular places and unbeatable panorama: Rucar-Bran corridor and Piatra Craiului
- Remote and cozy: the mountains around Buzau
- Easy to reach, great for hillwalking and hiking with children: Rusenski Lom National Park in Ruse county/Bulgaria
- Walking and picnicking in Comana National Park
To be continued in my next post where I will introduce some great day hikes in Piatra Craiului area.
Christian
Fox’s Bar Review: The Dubliner
The Dubliner
Address: B-dul Titulescu 18
Phone: +40 021 222 94 73
Web: www.irishpubs.ro
The Dubliner is an Irish bar, an institution among many, and it has been around for seventeen years on the Bucharest Night Life scene. It has the feel of a traditional Irish bar and has a loyal gang of regulars which sit at the bar solving the problems of the world.
There is a smoky atmosphere and rather tired furnishings but if you want to watch sports from around the world and drink good Guinness this is a great place to go. They have UK Sky Sports so you can watch Premier league football with your favorite commentators and all the banter. They serve traditional English/Irish pub food with exceptionally good pies most notably the steak kidney.
If you are living in Bucharest and missing your local at home, The Dubliner can give you that warm fuzzy feeling!
All About Money Magazine Article from City Compass
Originally published in All About Money Magazine March 1, 2010
Tom Sawyer in Romania
By Mateo Urquijo
In a recent conversation, I asked a Romanian colleague of mine what he thought about hierarchy in business. He told me that business hierarchy in Romania was culturally traditional, although in his companies, he has adopted a much more progressive view. When I asked him exactly what he meant, he explained that oftentimes, an employer is seen not only as a superior within the company, but also as a kind of social superior: a life-mentor who guides an employee’s personal career development. Slightly confused, I asked him exactly what do you mean? He said, “I’ll give you an example. If a boss told an employee ‘today you are not going to do your normal job; you are going to my house to paint my fence,’ they would do it.” Astonished, I said, “Ok, but your employees are all accountants and consultants.” He explained again that he was more progressive, that he expected his people to take on a great deal of personal responsibility for their work and he personally wouldn’t ask them to do something like this. But, theoretically, they would. He was quick to add that not every employer asks their employees to do things like this, but still, it was possible.
I really thought about this. In my work experience, I’ve had only one employer whose fence I would’ve painted had he told me to: the owner of a construction company I worked for during college. Had any other employer told me to paint their fence, I would’ve thought that they were crazy. I would have thought, that’s not in my job description. I still might have done it, but I would have asked, “How much extra you are going to pay me?” If they had said it was part of my career development, and that I wasn’t getting paid extra, I would have instantly thought they were trying to scam me. And anyhow, did I really trust any of my employers to develop my career?
What is of particular interest to me is the idea (I am genuinely intrigued) that there is something like an even remotely universal understanding of this topic in Romania. I can say that with the possible exception of certain parts of the government, American businesses and organisations are pretty much autonomous in their approaches to internal structures. Go into a bookstore and you will find an endless supply of books on the topic: from Management for Dummies, to Models, Methods, Concepts & Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, everyone seems to have the new ‘best’ idea for how to organise a company’s internal hierarchical structures. In fact, companies themselves sometimes use their internal structures to lure employees. Google cleverly refers to their internal hierarchical structure as ‘culture’ rather than a systematised organisation process. But then, maybe I am wrong; I never worked for Google. Better, here are a couple examples of what I mean from personal experience:
I worked for a time (also in college) for Starbucks. Their general philosophy was that they had no hierarchy; every employee was a ‘partner’ in the company. This meant that instead of an employee ID number, you got a Partner Number. Instead of employee meeting, it was a Partner’s Meeting, and so on. I was sceptical of all of this because we still had a manger after all, as well as a regional manager etc., all the way up. But the more I learned, the more convinced I became. For example, in addition to truly terrific benefits like full health coverage options even for part-time employees (this is truly incredible in America), I learned that all employees can buy stock in the company at reduced rates. So someone at a lower-level could become vested in the company and while a shareholder is something different from a ‘partner,’ it is a better deal than a mere stakeholder.
And it worked. People I worked with, after becoming owners of shares, suddenly worked harder, were quicker to point out their colleagues’ mistakes, and generally provided better customer service. The epiphany of direct profit returns encouraged the behaviour of the company’s lowest-level employees to change, oftentimes, radically. That is not to say they were bad workers beforehand, but when their interest was direct, so was their motivation.
Still, being a lowest-level employee myself, I can say that even with stock, it wasn’t all direct profits and corporate adulation. There were daily reminders of your place in the actual hierarchy. Like the time an angry customer demanded that I “do something” about an expired coupon he wanted Starbucks to honour. What could I say? “Sir, I make $7 per hour. They pay me to follow policy, not to make it.”
Another example is hierarchy in the airline industry. When I worked for a mid-sized airline for several years, I learned exactly what the word ‘hierarchy’ means. Of course the flight crews have a hierarchical system that is completely and militaristically rigid. The captain is in total command of the aircraft while it is underway (also legally responsible). The first officer (and subsequent officers on larger planes) is under the captain’s command, as well as the rest of the flight crew (flight attendants etc.). They wear stripes to indicate rank, and the whole thing resembles military hierarchy, because, well that’s where it comes from. Ok, but the airline’s internal corporate structures are also quite interesting.
I worked as a flight coordinator, managing ground crews. Every so often we would get new ‘internal crew members’ from the corporate office. At first, I was confused. Why would someone in the corporate office come out to work on a ground crew, tossing bags, fuelling, and dumping the plane’s toilets? I learned that in the corporate office there is a glass ceiling; you can only climb so high on the corporate ladder if you don’t have grunt-work experience. So you would see a mid-level financial analyst with an MBA come down after work, take his $400 shoes off, and learn how to drive a bag train or clean toilets from a sweaty 20 year-old. It was a terrific system because everyone had to do grunt-level work for at least six months in order to advance in the company. In this way, when people at the top made decisions about people at the bottom, they could think in very real experiential terms, what this meant (as well as having a more well-rounded idea of company operations).
Hierarchy also manifested itself in the airline through its benefits. There was health insurance option, but far more glamorous were the flight benefits. You could fly for free anywhere with our airline, depending on how many empty seats there were. We could also fly for free, or very cheaply (normally just paying taxes), with nearly every other airline in the world (e.g. Chinese airlines were notably excepted). But there were rules about how this worked. Pilots and flight crews oftentimes live in different cities and commute, so their priority was among the highest. They could also jump-seat, which means they could sit in flight crew-only seats: in the cockpit, there are seats for an additional pilot, for example. Next, it was corporate officers, and then down the line. But what if you have two people with the same job who want to get on the same flight and there is only one seat available? Seniority by time with the company rules here. So if I have worked longer for the company than my colleague, I get to fly.
Of course this system is terrific for maintaining employee loyalty as well. My airline didn’t have a very high turnover rate at the lowest levels compared to other industries, which was great for the airline since the training process was extremely expensive. Instead, even people that were discontent with their jobs would continue to work because of the benefits their increasing seniority offered. On the other hand, to watch that financial officer you just trained waltz onto the plane ahead of you, while you waited six hours for the next flight, wasn’t very inspiring.
In the end, many different internal hierarchical structures seem to work well. Still, I can’t seem to shake this idea of the Romanian boss and the fence. But then, today I thought I might have understood. Having thought about this question a lot, I woke up this morning having dreamt about Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. In one story, Tom must paint a fence instead of going out to play. But when his friends come by and laugh at him, he slyly pretends that painting the fence is a special honour. His friends are naturally intrigued and ask him if they too can try. After he pretends to consider the issue, he lets them, but only in return for something: some marbles, an apple, etc. In the end, the friends end up painting the whole fence for him, and Tom gets rich from the deal.
Or maybe I missed the point entirely: Am I just too American to understand this particular Romanian traditional virtue?
Fox’s Bar Review: The Embassy
The Embassy
Address: Piata Lahovari 8
Phone: +40 0733 50 03 00
Web: www.embassy-club.ro
The Embassy is a lounge bar located in Piata Lahovari, in a very fine old building just behind Piata Romana. As you walk up to the bar it has a rather grand feel about it with its solid dark wood bar top and above your head a landing of matching dark wood banister with old paintings on the walls. The bar area itself has low tables with soft, sink-into sofas and chairs. I really like this bar in the afternoons as it has a very relaxed atmosphere and a great place to while away a few hours with friends. The bar has TVs showing sport which seems to be standard equipment in all Bucharest bars, but this is definitely is not a sports bar so I do find the TV is a slight distraction. The service is good with friendly, attentive bar staff. The offering is good with a bar food menu of Tapas, Pizza, Pasta and a drinks menu with some cocktails, and all the standard beers, wines and spitits at reasonable prices. There are 2 private rooms upstairs, which are available to hire, either for business meetings during the day or for party at night. One of the rooms is good for numbers around 80, and the other for numbers around 50. The Embassy has a fantastic outdoor space and I think this is really where it comes into its own. The terrace doubles the total floor space of drinking area and is very nicely decked out with quality outdoor furnishings and a separate bar area. I think now the snow has gone and there is a hint of spring in the air; it won’t be long before the terrace is back in action. The opening hours are 11am until 3am between Sunday and Thursday, and 11am until very late on Friday and Saturday. It is possible to reserve a table on a first-come first-serve basis, so if your planning your Saturday night out in advance call ahead.
All About Money Magazine Article from City Compass
Originally published in All About Money Magazine February 1, 2010
McMici, anyone?
By Mateo Urquijo
In Sibiu there is a local family restaurant that is said to serve the best ciorbă de burtă in town. Many foreigners won’t try the stuff once they find out what it’s made of: tripe, or cow’s stomach. I think it’s delicious though. In fact, on my father’s side of the family they make a soup that is very similar called menudo, which is also made from tripe. The two taste just about the same, but in my family’s version we add coriander, cheese, hominy, fresh jalapenos, occasionally pig’s feet and no sour cream.
It is funny how similar the two dishes are considering they originate from countries a half a world apart. Having said that, I have never come across anything like the Romanian dish mici, in Mexico; nor have I seen tamales in Romania. Still, there are some universals in whichever country you happen to be: Big Macs, KFC, and Whoppers are pretty much the same no matter where you are. But why should American fast food be universal and not mici or tamales? Why McDonald’s and not McPopa’s?
I ask these questions in all earnestness. How can the small business serving tripe soup compete with chicken McNuggets? How can the corner store or the local farmer’s market compete with Real and Carrefour? The simple answer is that, likely, they can’t. Many Romanians are quick to tell me that people in their country often buy from foreign stores and Western brands because these are things that weren’t available under communism; and they say that the younger generation is especially inclined to buy foreign goods. So maybe their choices are just an expression of shifting consumer attitudes. But I have a feeling that it is more than that. From my point of view, the growing trends of globalisation in Romania, while bringing many good things to new places, may well mean a diminishment of traditional culture and identity. But, I think small businesses and local communities could play a major role in curbing those effects in the coming decades, if, they are supported.
I will attempt to make my case for small business by continuing our discussion on food: If I asked you to tell me about German cuisine, you would probably tell me about Schweinshaxe mit Sauerkraut; French cuisine, you might say “Quiche Lorraine” or “Coq au Vin”; and for Italian cuisine, you might mention Vitello Tonnato. But if I asked you about American food, you would probably say McDonald’s, right? Many Americans would give the same answer. But if you asked an American in the 1940’s they would probably have said something like, “roasted butternut squash soup” or “cedar-planked rainbow trout”.
So, when did Americans cash in their fish cooked on cedar sticks, for frozen fish sticks? Was there a time before America was covered in fast food chains and people had to cook? Last year I found a book called “The Food of a Younger Land” by Mark Kurlansky, which paints “a portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before fast food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional”. I was completely amazed to discover the variety and richness of the food throughout my own country. How could I have reached adulthood without having known about (much less tasted) South Carolina Pee Dee Fish Stew, or Cider Plum Pudding? How was it possible that I had no real knowledge of my country’s regional traditional dishes? Kurlansky explains that after the creation of the national highway system, technological improvements in refrigerated transportation, and mass production, America’s entire sense of consumer identity changed. Traditional dishes that take ages to cook were out-competed by cheaper, industrialized foods. Seasonal fruits and vegetables were shipped in and shipped out of every corner of the country, and you no longer had to wait for summer to eat tomatoes.
When older Americans tell my generation that they can remember seasonal foods (a time when oranges in the winter were so special that they were given as Christmas presents) and that they weren’t available year-round, my generation is likely to respond, “What? Why? Did the supermarket run out?” The fact is, no one my age in America knows what ‘seasonal’ actually means. I live in Sibiu, and it was here for the first time in my life that I experienced myself what it means: fruits and berries in the high summer, cherries in the late summer (as well as the difference between sweet and sour cherries), eggplant until October, cucumbers starting in May, and some pumpkins and squash in the winter. In Romania, my neighbours have given me vegetables they grew and canned in the summer so they have paprika and cauliflower in the winter (and frozen roasted eggplant for zacuscă, too). In America, very few people have any idea at all where their food even comes from, and no one would save it until winter.
Still, while everyone here knows that the local farmer’s market has better tomatoes than their international ‘super’ counterparts, the local farmers can’t compete with their variety, selection, and price. Besides, even if the tomatoes aren’t as good from the supermarket, it would mean making another trip to the local market and who has time for that? But this is exactly what must be done in order to ensure that the local farmer’s market is still there in ten years.
When massive and multiple supermarkets come into town, many small businesses fail, and this is the same story everywhere. When I was in the US over Christmas, I read in a local Colorado newspaper that a small coffee shop had gone out of business after 15 years to be replaced by a chain shop for medical marijuana. There was a large public outcry, but when the owner was asked what she thought, she said that people shouldn’t be upset; if you don’t patronize your favourite small businesses, they disappear.
This is precisely my fear for Romania. People say that I exaggerate when I tell them this, but then, they don’t know what it’s like to have a plastic hamburger as their national dish…Yet. Because my country is relatively young, living in a quaint medieval city like Sibiu is a wondrous thing. With the rich old architecture, cobblestone streets, and historical museums, for me it is really like a movie because it is so totally foreign. But if I go outside of the city centre just two kilometres, it feels exactly like home: Real, Carrefour, and Kaufland are all in a row, with KFC, McDonald’s and a gas station standing at the gates. These giant concrete boxes with paved sidewalks and massive parking lots also have a small housing development with identical houses directly across the street. Change the names of those box stores to Costco, Walmart and Kroger, and I could be anywhere in America (if you find this hard to believe, do a Google image search for ‘suburb’).
The bottom line is that it is easy to forget traditions when so many options are literally on the table. But here is fair warning that you should not forget: You don’t want your grandchildren to have never heard of sarmale until they read it in a book. You might laugh and say “that’s impossible”, but I would remind you that the busiest McDonald’s store in the world isn’t in America, it’s in Europe. Munich to be exact (apparently, their motto “Ich liebe es” (I’m lovin’ it) is really true). And it isn’t just food; it is also easy for Germans to forget about their local cafés and traditional café culture in the bright glow of Starbucks, McDonald’s McCafe, and the San Francisco Coffee Company. So when I say that it is possible, it is because I know it from my own country, from seeing my country’s companies in other countries, and from the Fortune 500 figures: Walmart is no. 2 (no.1 for six of the last ten years), Kroger no. 22, and Costco no. 24.
And it is staggering to realize that these changes to the day-to-day lifestyles of consumers weren’t effected over the course of millennia or even centuries; these are fundamental changes that have occurred in less than one person’s lifetime (less than 70 years). Still, the situation is not futile. In 2000, in an effort to protect its traditional small-town character, the US city of Arcata, California, enacted a municipal “Committee on Democracy and Corporations”. Its main goal was to “research and present to the [City] Council options for controlling the growth of “pattern restaurants” in the community [...] and to provide advice on ways to foster sustained locally-owned businesses”. The result was that two years later, legislation (Ordinance No. 1333) was passed limiting the number of chain restaurants in the city to nine (see cityofarcata.org).
I try, therefore, as a matter of principle not to go to American chains when I am abroad. I would much rather have bowls of tripe soup in my new medieval city. And for the moment, everybody in Sibiu still knows where to find it. But with a brand new KFC and McDonald’s in town (the second one here) it is easy to overlook this local family restaurant; in fact, I would love to tell you its name, but I seem to have forgotten it.
Fox’s Bar Review: FOURTEEN
FOURTEEN
Address: Strada Benjamin Franklin Nr. 14
Phone: +40 (0)741 123 098
Web: www.fourteen.ro
For a map, click here!
Fourteen is an English-owned bar new on the Bucharest night life scene which opened its doors in October 2009, and I have to say what a little gem. Situated at Strada Benjamin Franklin 14 just to the side of the Athenaeum,it is a basement bar club run by a very friendly and welcoming team of bar staff serving up good wines, cocktails and a selection of draught and bottle beers, including Newcastle Brown Ale, which makes me feel right at home!
The bar has a cosy feel with its exposed red brick walls and soft lighting, ideal for an early evening drink, with bench seating and tables along the walls playing background tunes.
As the evening progresses the tunes are gently rev’d up playing a mixture of 80′s, Brit pop with a few of your favorite anthems in the mix.
This is a great venue for a private party if you want to invite 80 of your best friends.
Fourteen is open from Tuesday ‘till Saturday 7pm until very late.