Regarding food, where could I go for dinner my first night in town?
“Kauke,” Aushra said. “It is close to where you are staying and nice and calm.” Perfect. I didn’t fancy crowds or chaos. But what should I try that’s typically Lithuanian cuisine?
“Cepelinai.”
Aushra asked the next day how my dinner had gone.
“Great, but unfortunately no Cepelinai,” I said.
“Oh, that is a problem.” Since I was joining both Aushra and her colleague Laura for dinner that evening, they would take me to somewhere I could try the recommended dish.
“We have problem,” Aushra said when we’d sat down and ordered drinks at UAB Saulimas. “They do not have Cepelinai tonight.” As an alternative, Balandéliai was suggested but she and Laura weren’t entirely sure if this was in fact a traditional Lithuanian dish.
“Ah, we have a problem,” Aushra said when the waitress returned for our order. “They do not have Balandéliai, either.”
Twenty-one year old Laura sat across the table and began to get annoyed when the waitress asked what she’d like to order.
“She asked for pizza,” Aushra translated what Laura said to the waitress, “If they have it.”
Laura even went as far as asking if she could go downstairs to the supermarket, buy Cepelinai and have the restaurant cook it for me.
“Don’t they know we have a guest here who wants to try our food?” she said. It was difficult for any of us not to laugh at the situation.
Never mind. Pizza was fine and I’d try Cepelinai at the homestead in Sudeikiai today.
“Ah, Miss Victoria, we have a problem with your lunch today,” Aushra said when I arrived at the tourist office today to hitch a ride with Rasa.
“We have called the homestead but they are full the entire week and cannot even fit one person in for lunch today. But, you know,” she paused, “the place we went last night had Cepelinai just now when I was there.”
I was there in heart beat and couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about Cepelinai.
Sadly, the fuss is nothing but a anemic-looking fatty glutinous glob of what’s apparently potatoes stuffed with a rather measly amount of meat—what kind I have no idea—surrounded by oil and grease and decorated with a large blob of sour cream.
Have to say it’s one of the most disgusting food items I have ever had the misfortune to taste. It’s tasteless, in fact. I ate as much as I could of the doughy substance and while I finished my glass of wine watched what was left of the dollop wobble like a jelly every time someone walked passed the table.
Yum, yum.
