Hitriya Petel (Хитрия петел)
Address: 22 Shesti Septemvri Str, Sofia
Tel: 02/ 470 74 64
Open: every day, 11.00 to 23.30
Credit cards: soon
I stumbled upon Hitriya Petel (The Cunning Rooster, named after a Bulgarian folk tale) in early March, while looking for refreshments after a shopping tour. The building near the “little five corners”, off Graf Ignatiev Street, had until recently housed the pizzeria Zion and the change came as a surprise.
Another surprise was the creative menu where the chicken ice cream stood out and overrode my decision to only have a drink.
The waiter was kind – even unceremonious – and quite swift, but the latter I only attributed to the relatively empty hall.
My chicken sundae (3.90 leva) was a plate with three vanilla ice cream scoops in the middle, topped with berry syrup and surrounded by crispy chicken fillets fried in shredded coconut. It was a curious combination, the contrast between warm and cold piqued my senses and I thought I would return one day to try this delicacy again.
In the following two months, more changes had happened. In early May, the building greeted me with a freshly painted bright green exterior and a significantly busier and subtly refurbished interior. The simple wooden benches were replaced by rope-trimmed wooden furniture with more distinct character. I learned that local TV stars Ivan Hristov and Andrei Arnaoudov (hosts of bTV’s talk show Sblusuk and producers and hosts of the Bulgarian versions of American Idol and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?), were the new owners who had officially opened the restaurant on April 17.
Hitriya Petel displayed all the traits of its “fathers” – youthful, bustling and jovial.
Our group of three settled at a table that would have better accommodated only two. We had to put up with the neighbouring noisy bunch who were enjoying the Levski-CSKA match on the TV screen. The pop-rock music that was playing was at a discreet level, drowned out by the buzzing clientele.
It took the waitress only a minute to clear our table and give us menus. None of us needed an English-language menu but just for the record I phoned the next day and asked if any were available, and I was told that they were “not printed yet.” I inquired whether the staff spoke English and the answer was “so-so”.
Our waitress was amiable and was trying hard to serve us well. Not more than five minutes after we got our menus she was ready to take our order.
We chose our drinks – zhiva bira (unfiltered lager, 2.20 leva for 330ml) and domestic draught beer (2.20 leva for 500ml). The bottled wines listed on the menu were mostly priced at 16.90 or 19.90 leva, with a few Chilean options at a few leva higher. One of my friends wanted room-temperature mineral water but was told that water was stored in the fridge.
The order in which food was served was a disaster. Our drinks arrived promptly, followed by one salad and a starter 15 minutes later. Less than five minutes after that I was brought my salad, one of my friends got her main dish and my male friend’s chicken also arrived. He complained that he wanted to finish his salad first and that now he had to either eat the chicken along with the salad or put up with a colder dish later. To complete the exasperation, my trout arrived when both my companions had already emptied their plates and were thinking about dessert. Admittedly I ordered it a few minutes after my friends. The waitress’s explanation was that it was a complicated and time-consuming dish.
Food was pleasant but nothing out of the ordinary. The stuffed green olives with bacon and mushrooms (5.30 leva) that one friend had were tasty and succulent, and her Greek-style mini meatballs with olives (4.20 leva) looked like Serbian cevapcici but had a distinct piquant taste, while the olives were only discernible as a texture. My other friend’s braided chicken (7.80 leva) – strips of chicken fillet entwined with bacon strips, topped with mushrooms, pickles and cream sauce – was tasty and attractively presented. And my stuffed trout (9.40 leva) was perfectly done, tender and fragrant, with a juicy filling of walnuts, corn and pickled gherkins. If only it had arrived earlier.
Ordering dessert turned out to be another disaster, with half the items on the menu missing. My male friend got his home-made biscuit cake (2.90 leva) topped with chocolate sauce. I glimpsed it delivered to other tables with what looked like raspberry sauce topping and wondered why he wasn’t offered a choice. Anyway, the texture and taste were decent. My female friend asked for tiramisu but it was not available. Creme caramel was also missing. From the waitress’s offers she picked yoghurt creme with blueberry jam (2.50 leva, not on the menu) which was simple drained yoghurt generously topped with berries, but tasty and fresh nevertheless. I was considering a helping of the chicken ice cream that drew me back in the first place, but was dissuaded quickly when the waitress said it would take long to prepare.
The bill came to 57.50 leva for the three of us, though the server had not included the last two drinks we ordered with the dessert. With them, the amount was 59.70 leva. She excused her absent-mindedness but did not correct the bill or bring an updated one.
On the way out we noticed that a daily lunch menu was posted near the entrance, offering dishes such as moussaka below five leva per dish. There is also a bar/club on the second level of the building. In sum, Hitriya Petel would be a decent option for a couple of beers in the company of friends, if you were able to find a table, that is.
