Restaurant Samurai

Kosovo. Not exactly a place where you think you could get good Japanese food. But I had a hankering, a sushi itch I needed to scratch, a desire to give my sinuses a wasabi clearing. Determined and with the thin knowledge that there was a Japanese restaurant in Pristina, I hopped on the bus for the 90-minute ride north.

After I got off at the bus station, I wasn't sure where to go so I started off in search of a cab. I saw lots of taxis, empty, without drivers, sitting in the parking lot. I looked in about 10 cars but saw no one. I began walking but soon realized I wasn't quite sure which way the city center was. There were two cabs a bit ahead of me parked on the sidewalk. The first one I approached had no driver, but there was a small wrinkled man smoking a cigarette in the second. "Taxi?" I asked. He nodded. "Grand Hotel?" I asked. He nodded then paused, "3 Euros."

Standing in front of the Grand Hotel, I kicked at a pile of gravel and looked around. I scanned the rooftops, I watched traffic skitter by, and then I knew. Five minutes later I was standing in front of Restaurant Samurai looking at the daily specials board (some kind of noodle dish, it was written in English). The outdoor seating looked pretty full and it was hot (high 80's today) so I went inside and sat down.

I looked over the menu: no tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), no unagi (eel), and a really short and expensive sushi list (4,5 Euros for salmon). But I saw what I wanted: sake & tekka don (sliced salmon and tuna over rice): 12 Euros. Expensive, but after 90 minutes on a hot smelly bus, I didn't care.

The food came fast: A big bowl with a one-person portion of rice draped with 6 pieces of fish. The salmon was good, like salmon you'd get anywhere (probably farmed). The tuna was edible, but was a lower grade of tuna, like bintoro or something along those lines. The wasabi, though, the wasabi...I cleared my sinuses twice (quite accidentally, mind you). For two more Euros I had a pot of oolong tea (which was quite nice) that was served with a really small tea cup with a handle too small to be usable.

All-in-all, considering I am in Kosovo, my meal at Restaurant Samurai was decent. It didn't knock my socks off but I've had comparable meals at Japanese restaurants in the US. (It's not like Minden/Gardnerville is on the map in terms of non-Basque destination restaurants.) I don't think I'll make the trek to Pristina just to go there, but I would go back.

After eating, I wandered around for a while and happened upon a bookstore which had a surprising selection of Haruki Murakami, a handful of calendars from 2005, an interesting collection of art books, and a few maps and postcards. I bought some art magazines from last year, a book (Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer), and a map of Greece. I don't plan on making regular trips to Pristina for fun, but at least there's a bookshop to browse if I decide to go.