Rating
Overall 3/6
Service 5/6
Atmosphere 5/6
Food 3/6
Price $$
(($ up to 12 leva a person for three courses; $$ 12 to 20 leva pp; $$$ 20 to 35 pp; $$$$ 35 and over pp))

Address:
Bunaya Str 26
Tel: 02/ 843 53 49
Open: every day, from 11am to 11pm
Credit cards:  no

A tiny building that looks as if it once might have been a power substation, hidden between housing blocks in Sofia's Poduyane neighbourhood and just off from Oborishte and Cherkovna streets houses the Крилцата(The Wings) restaurant.
The restaurant has its own half-dozen or so parking places, no luxury in this city, though it does take some navigating through the maze of one-way streets to get to the restaurant by car. We had parked ours a few streets earlier and decided to walk from there.

When first entering this establishment, the unsuspecting visitor could be in for a slight surprise. Upon opening the front door, the very first thing you are faced with is the (doorless) entrance into a tiny toilet-area. It turns out the restaurant is to your right, behind a set of small swing doors. Once inside, the restaurant itself is extremely friendly, with less than a dozen wooden tables and a wooden floor.

Enormous windows make the place look larger than it really is, though it was hard to escape a slight feeling of being inside an aquarium.

The staff is young, friendly and interested in their customers, almost un-Bulgarian so. The menu is in Bulgarian only and, when we visited the restaurant, not everything on the menu was available, like the outdoors BBQ, which only worked in the summer. The waitress was friendly and quick to point out what was available.

We had visited the restaurant several weeks earlier with a group of around 30, which the restaurant accommodated without a problem. Reservations had been made for the group, but no down-payments or up-front menu-selection was asked for and both service and kitchen managed admirably with the group.

This time, there was only the four of us, including our five-year-old daughter. We ordered several salads, a tabbouleh, then something the menu called Червейчета (worms), stewed vegetables with blue cheese, stuffed chicken roll and roast pork. Because different dishes would take a different amount of time to prepare, the waitress asked us in what order we'd like to have our food served. A much friendlier solution than just serving everything whenever it happens to be ready.

The salads we ordered included a shopska salata (3.90 leva) and a potato salad (2.80 leva), two safe choices. The third salad was a green salad with blue cheese (5.20 leva). The green salad came as a slightly-too-large amount of finely cut lettuce on top of pieces of cucumbers and a few chunks of tomatoes on a plate that was a little too small. Covering it all, a layer of very finely grated blue cheese was trying to maintain balance. Approach with care.

The tabbouleh (5.20 leva) was served with the mix of bulgur and herbs in the middle of the plate, and the tomatoes and a lemon around the edge, as if it were decoration. The tabbouleh suffered from the watery, winter tomatoes that had been used. The so-called Червейчета, or worms (7.10 leva), was a plate of sliced, battered and deep fried chicken fillet. Not bad. The stewed vegetables, mostly carrots and cauliflower, with blue cheese (8.20 leva) were done just right with the vegetables not too soft.

The stuffed chicken rolls (6.90 leva) was a bit too well done on the outside, with a stuffing of mostly mushroom and pickles that had almost no texture or taste. The pork roast, served with mashed potatoes and an undefined red sauce (7.80 leva), was too dry.

There was not much choice in desserts, with not everything on the menu available, but the creme brulee was absolutely fine.

All in all, Крилцата is a good choice for an evening with family or friends, long conversations (no loud music!) over a bite and a drink with very good service.