When you need a break from eating seafood while exploring the Oregon coast, how about a visit over to an entirely different country with Bosnian food? There isn’t much Bosnian food to be found in Portland, so I was surprised when I saw that Drina Daisy in Astoria not only specializes only in Bosnian cuisine, but got consistently high ratings on Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Zomato. In fact, on Tripadvisor it was ranked the second highest restaurant in Astoria (with understandably Bowpicker Fish & Chips taking the #1 spot).

When I read the description, I couldn’t help but be a bit charmed by it’s sincere heart:

Drina Daisy strives to offer uncommon food that is approachable & satisfying. Our food is prepared & presented with a respect that comes from its ancient roots. We labor to celebrate the dignity of hard work & meaningful service. Drina Daisy is a place to relax with good food & good hearts. Drina Daisy seeks to bridge both time & place.

How fun to go on a little adventure to the coast, and then embedded in that adventure have a mini adventure that takes us to another place in the world. As soon as we stepped into the restaurant, we could immediately feel a different vibe from the rest of the Coast, almost as if we had stepped into a portal that had transported us into a little family restaurant in some street in Sarajevo.

The Ajvar that we started out with (a traditional condiment and spread made from pureed fire roasted sweet red bell peppers, here served with bread) is the consistentcy of how I model the adjika sauce that I made previously with burek (though thanks to the use of red chili peppers, adjika is much spicier).

Meanwhile, the Bosanski Sudzuk (a Bosnian Smoked Beef sausage with light garlic and other light spicing) sliced and decoratively arranged with pickled vegetables and Sopska (a tomato and cucumber salad with diced tomato, cucumber, green pepper, and cheese in light sour cream dressing) served as a second shared appetizer for us.

What you see is pretty representative of the starters that Drina Daisy offers, they only have 3 starters (2 meat, and the other is the Ajvar) and they only have 3 salads. The arrangement on the plates was simple and functional – the menu promises that “presentation varies by availability and mood”.

Then our main dishes came in huge platters for the four of us- we had ordered 3 mains. The major types of entrees they have fall into a beef stew (the only type we didn’t get), stuffed cabbage leaves (either with beef or vegetarian), handmade pitas/pies with jufka (filo pastry), and a lamb platter.

Here, you can see the vegetarian entrees were placed together along with some green salads and various fruits: it was so old school style.

Zeljanica is a cheese pita of Jufka folded and baked around spinach, farm cheese mixed with eggs. They had a version without spinach (listed as Sirnica) and a version that included ground beef and onion (Burek).

The favorite of the 2 vegetarian options was the Sarma Sa Povrcem, Stuffed Cabbage Leaves with Italian arborio rice and Vegetables and spiced with Mediterranean spices.

Three of us also shared the Jagnjetina Na Rostilju, a Rotisserie flamed roasted whole fresh young lamb rubbed with Mediterranean spices and roasted in their special large rotisserie. These are a Mediterranean style cut aka mixed pieces cut from the whole lamb, for a platter for two.

Finish off with Kafa, a Sarajevo style Minas coffee. Made and served as it was when Sarajevo introduced coffee to Europe in the 1500s. Made and served in traditional dzezva, includes mineral water, sugar cubes and lokum (a cookie). They also Baklava if you want an actual dessert option.

Other unique  beverage options include Cockta (a Yugoslavian soft drink produced in Slovenia flavored with 11 different herbs with dog-rose berry, vitamin C and caramelized sugar providing much of the flavor. No caffeine, no corn sweeteners or phosphoric acid) and Kiseljia, Bosnian Mineral water that can be mixed with their fruit syrups including strawberry, blueberry, and rose petal. A dozen Eastern and Central European beers and spirits and wines of Yugoslavia rounds out the beverage menu along with the regular teas and American sodas.

Have you been to Astoria? What was your favorite eats there?

Have you been to Drina Daisy, or had Bosnian food before?