(There's a
shopping thread on Balkan food, but none dedicated to restaurants. It's not a cuisine I know deeply, but I wanted to share a recent experience and it didn't seem quite to merit a thread dedicated only to that restaurant... is "Balkan" really the appropriate general term? anyway, enough preface...)
Last week some friends and I tried out
Gurman Restoran, a strip-mall Bosnian restaurant just west of Lawrence and Western. Between us we shared a sort of veal stew, a sandwich consisting of a patty of ground beef stuffed with mushrooms (the name eludes me), and a cevapcici sandwich. Ah, yes, and a spinach burek. I also quite enjoyed a blueberry nectar beverage.
While the food was not lifechangingly good, it was tasty and hearty. The sandwich bread was nice and fluffy, and the cut surfaces had just enough time on the grill to be gently crispy. The meats were a little dried out, but I got the feeling we were getting there pretty late in their day; before we even ordered the (very friendly) proprietor warned us that he was down to the last two spinach burek. Also, the cevapcici were not very spicy, although I thought in past experience at other places they usually were.
One reason we went was because from the street, the place looks pretty dark and a little forboding, and we had built up some grand sense of adventure. (We also hadn't yet determined that it was a Bosnian restaurant, although we were pretty sure it was from somewhere in that part of the world.) To be honest, I was expecting an environment a little like Panini Panini, the dark and smoke-filled café in Rogers Park where I've never felt remotely welcome, but once we entered, this turned out to completely different; bright and clean and welcoming.
I liked this place and would happily go back, but it was as much about the overall experience as the objective quality of the food. As noted, the proprietor was a very friendly guy, the food was satisfying. The combined toasty/fluffy bread was on my mind the next day, especially in combination the whipped butter/cheese spread which was provided in mass quantities for slathering on anything and everything.
Has anyone else tried Gurman? What about other places in that area serving similar food?
Gurman Restoran
2547 W. Lawrence Ave, Chicago
773-275-2707
Joe G.
"Whatever may be wrong with the world, at least it has some good things to eat." -- Cowboy Jack Clement