I believe waiting staff channel the national spirit. Think of those wonderfully friendly American ‘servers’. Snide Parisian waiters. Thin-skinned Italians. Bored Brits.
Well, the Bulgarian waiters at Sunny Beach, a restaurant near Turnpike Lane, were amusingly blunt – a characteristic I associate with the handful of other Bulgarians I’ve ever met.
In a way, I kind of like a waiter who doesn’t give a shit about you. At least they’re honest. It’s inconvenient having to work. No one likes doing it. They don’t want to be there talking to me. And that’s fair enough. Take my order with a huff and a roll of the eyes, plonk my food down with no concern. What more do I expect?
Sunny Beach is, I assume, named after a tourist resort on the country’s Black Sea coast. The owners have built a sort of roofed terrace poking out onto the pavement, which, when we visited, allowed us to enjoy the mid-June sun. Oh, and the joys of second hand smoke. Everyone was smoking at Sunny Beach; couples, single men, families out for a Monday evening meal. It was like they’d missed the memo about the 2007 smoking ban.
Onto the food.
Alf and I started with an aubergine and roasted red pepper dip. This was bloody fantastic and I hope it becomes the next big thing in the world of dips. Move over hummus, tzatziki and baba ghanoush, there’s a new crisp accompaniment in town, going by the name ‘aubergine salad’. Of course, we had to ask for plates so we could serve ourselves (huff, roll of eyes… the plates never came).
Next we received some garlic bread we never ordered, and the mains were then dropped off with minimal ceremony. The first was a pork cavarma. This was a dish that came served in an earthenware pot for some reason. Quite tasty, it was a kind of sweet and sour pork stew, faintly reminiscent of something you’d get at a Chinese buffet.
Then our main order arrived, a lamb Sach. This is a large hotplate which arrives sizzling. Piled high with singed, oily roast veg and cuts of lamb, with grated white cheese on top, for good measure.
This isn’t fine dining and I can’t say I found it especially inspiring. All the same, the Sach and the cavarma were filling and enjoyable. We washed it all down with light Bulgarian lagers and enjoyed ourselves a lot. Sunny Beach is a fun restaurant, packed with Bulgarians having a good time, and on a warm day, made for a decent evening out.
Score: 7/10
Cost: £70
Location: 8 Westbury Avenue, N22 6BN
The A to Z of World Food in London 
What a festival of a meal. A real rising of the lambs experience. Given all the smoke, which you kept Balkan on about, it’s lucky you both made it out alive.
I enjoyed very much your culinary prose here, it was written with a sort out tenderness and undeserved backhanded affection for the lacklustre waiting staff.
Another high score for a middle of the road, or rather edge of Europe, cuisine experience.
Sofia play to that I guess, if you enjoyed it, it’s all fair.
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