Hello everyone, my name is Ana. I’m a native Croatian who is passionate about food and travel. But tell me, who isn’t passionate about best things in life?
On this food and cuisine blog I’ll write reports on all the places I have ate at regardless if they the most popular restaurant franchise in the world, or a small unknown restaurant with local recipes.
Since this is my first post I decided to write about one of the most delicious dishes in the world. Can you guess it? It a octopus under the bell. You wouldn’t believe it but I just recently ate it for the first time. The best way to prepare an octopus is to freeze it fresh for about 24 hours so it softens its mussels and than bake it for couple of hours. Its usually served with baked potatoes, carrot and zucchini. Octopuses are really easy to catch. So if you are enthusiastic who wants to catch its own food you should try catching octopus firs. They usually swim out at surface around late afternoon just before the sun start to fall down to catch their own food. If you want to catch it its enough to have a tennis ball tided to a string. If an octopus seas a tennis ball it will believe it food and hug it with its mouth. This way you can pull it out, and the octopus will never let go of the ball, it will follow the ball till the end.
So the restaurant we ate at is placed on a magical island called Silba. Its placed just across one of the most popular touristic sites in Croatia during summer, a town called Zadar. Silba is really small local island, and during my vacation there we saw no foreigners. So, if you are looking for a place to clear your mind with peace and quiet this is just the place. This summer I went there with my friend Denis, and I believe you will hear a lot more about him in my posts. He is sort of my food buddy. So, the restaurant we ate at is called Vila Velebita. It’s a small restaurant really well evaluated od TripAdvisor. It’s a family business, mom cooks all the food, son and father work as waitress and there are a couple of family member helping them. It has a nice green terras in front, and couple of tables inside. It obligatory to reserve a spot there the day before or in the afternoon.
So, we ate twice at this restaurant. First night we got there we ate a tuna stake and squids, but I’m going to tell you about it in my next post. Also I’ll be telling you about all the wonders of the island, so be sure to check it out!
On our second night eating there, we got some free welcoming drinks and were placed in a romantic part of restaurant that was a bit separated for the rest of the guests. I guess they taught we were a couple or they wanted to host us in the best way since we are spend a lot of money there and we came back again. That was quiet nice actually. As welcoming drinks we got exactly what we order the night before, I drank orange rakija and Denis drank travarica. Rakija is native Croatian shots which are made by our grandparents. The have over 70% alcohol in them, so they are pretty strong and they kind of open your appetite. They are mostly made out of herbs (travarica) or plumbs (šljivovica), but you can make it from all sorts of things li orange, grapes… It was a nice of waiter that he remembered what we drank and gave us that again. Since we were very hungry and knew octopus can really make you full, we decided to skip appetizers and got to the main course immediately.
Oooooh myyy god, eating that octopus felt like haven is in my mouth. It was perfectly pinkish white on the inside and just so soft. Aaaah. On the outside it was also pink and octopus arms were crispy at the and. I cant believe how tasty that was. When you squeeze its little suckers and the round ball slips into your mouth.. its such a playful and fun food to eat. We got around 6 octopus arms that were decent size. As side dish we got plenty of potatoes and that was practically it. If you were lucky you could fist out maybe one of two tomatos or onions. Denis said he even saw a bit of zucchini but I didn’t. I believe that is not enough diversity in flavors. Potatoes were soft and delicious but its just not enough. They baked octopus and potatoes on sunflower oil and not on olive oil. I think that’s cardinal mistake for Mediterranean and sea food. We drank white wine with it, and unfortunately I forgot the name of the wine brand, but it was really cold and when well with the food. When we finished our meals we weren’t quite full but it was delicious. I believe we payed around 500 kuna for the octopus and a half a litter of wine. That’s around 67 euros. For the money we paid and the excellent reviews I read online I can say I’m a bit disappointed. Octopus was really excellent and I give it a 5+ for it, but side dish wasn’t enough. I mean you have only two different flavors in mouth, its boring. I honestly think this restaurant is over rated, it has only 7 dishes on its menu, and they are quite more expensive than in other restaurants on island. If you are by any chance a foreigner visitor and you see a good reviews ond trip advisor for this restaurant I know you will come and eat there, well I did it. I think they are kind of counting on it. But its just not that good. They might be charming and well behaved people but the food has bad standards.
If you wanna hear more about my vacation and the whole Silba experience be sure to check for my next post in a week!!
Would you SPIT or SWALLOW this food?
Tell me your answers in comments! :)
Photos by instagram accounts: 
