Vanya Nikova (1982)

Ocean Pick is specialized in the production of fish delicacies, salads and starters. They have just one shop open for public, but they distribute their fish products in food chains, hotels, restaurants and catering companies across the whole country.

Their small shop, situated in the heart of Sofia, is where you can get the cheapest and most innovative fresh fish meals in town. You can order for takeaway, or you can also have a quick lunch at the spot. Everything is prepared few hours before lunchtime, so if you come before 12 or after 14, you might miss some options.

I come here every time I want to have a fish snack for lunch. I usually choose a combination between fish and a healthy salad. I highly recommend you to try the salmon twister with herbs. Or you can go for any other type of salmon – salmon burgers or grilled salmon cutlets. From the starters I really like the zucchini with cheese, and my favorite salad is the red salad. Make sure you also try some of their fish delicacies, e.g. shrimps with broccoli or marinated red herring.

Recently, Ocean Pick has expanded its non-fish range with some meat and vegetarian dishes like moussaka. It also offers homemade desserts as well – cheese cakes, cookies and tiny tart cakes with fruits.

You can also find Ocean Pick in the Covered Market Hall, situated at the corner of Maria Louisa Blvd. and Exarch Josif Str.

The organic industry is growing also in Bulgaria. Especially in the capital Sofia natural and organic shops appear almost every month. However, not all of them resemble the real culture of an organic shop.

What I love about Zoya BG is its principles and total lack of commercialism. It has contributed a lot to help the consumers understand the differences between the concepts “natural” and “organic” – one unfortunately very manipulated topic in Bulgaria. It never advertises – it relies exclusively on word of mouth instead. And it seems to work.

Zoya BG is specialized on organic cosmetics, but it also offers a wide range of organic food and various books about healthy diet. Also, it’s the best place to buy the so called “super foods” – mostly imported by them from the UK. And that’s why I come here. Super foods are usually raw and contain high concentration of vitamins, minerals, micro-elements and enzyme systems. At first glance, they look expensive, but the daily quantity you need is rather small. Recently, Zoya also introduced some balanced liquid extracts from Nature’s Answer.

Super foods are perfect for healthy deserts and nutritious shakes. My favorite recipes are for bonbons with coconut butter, honey and cracked walnuts and for a shake – oat (or cow) milk, 1 banana, honey, cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of spirulina or cocoa powder. This would give you an impulse of physical and mental energy for the whole day – much better than any chemical energy drink. 

In the center of Sofia there are many snack restaurants, where you can have a quick, but healthy lunch, or take your food home within a few minutes. Some of those are already listed in our blog – we have soups (check Soup Me or Supa Star), healthy fish snacks (check Ocean Pick), delicious Bulgarian food (check TAVITE), salads and sushi snacks (check Fresh Break) or Asian wok.

Go Pasta fills in the missing gap as it offers fresh nutritious pasta for all pasta lovers. At first, the menu looks a bit complicated, but it’s actually very straight forward. You need to choose between 5 types of fresh pasta – bucatini, fettuccine, penne, spaghetti or fusilli. Next you need to pick up your favourite sauce for the pasta. You have a choice between 10 sauces – 5 with meat and 5 vegetarian. I love the boskayola sauce. Last step would be to decide whether you want your pasta with parmesan or with kashkaval (Bulgarian yellow cheese).

There is air-conditioning inside, and a few tall tables to wait for your meal or to have a quick lunch. To be “in trend”, Go Pasta also offers a lunch menu. Recently they included risotto in their menu, as well as a new fish sauce “panga” with pangasius fish – definitely worth a try!

The best of all – here you can taste some exclusive wines from legendary Italian, Spanish and German wineries. The staff will help you choose the wine most suitable to your pasta!

Casa de Cuba is the place to listen to Cuban music, Rumba or Latin jazz in Sofia. Especially if you are staying somewhat longer in Sofia and you fancy that kind of music, Casa de Cuba can easily become your favourite after-work spot.

Live music starts with the end of the working day and you get immediately the cheerful and relaxed after-work feeling in Latin America. No real stage is available, so the band needs to improvise. The dancing floor is everywhere. The bar has a lot of regular guests, who know the musicians and sometimes sing with them. Everyone looks as one big Cuban family.

The whole ambiance is old-fashioned – wooden tables and chairs, walls are covered with old pictures of Cuban artists. At the end of the bar there’s a higher platform with leather couches and scarce light – appropriate for couples or passionate discussions. A lot of guests smoke cigars, which only adds to the Cuban atmosphere. The staff is friendly and serves you immediately. In the morning, the bar is a quite suitable place where you can have you morning cup of coffee and read the news in peace.

Our traditional bread is very different from the Western types of bread. Therefore, many locals, who have spent some time abroad, get bored with the conventional breads offered in the supermarket and long for some bread variety. JoVan is the right place for them – the Dutch landmark of Sofia, situated in the very heart of Bulgaria’s capital.

The wide range of products that attracts locals as well as expats includes bread products typical for the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy. However, JoVan also offers some types of Bulgarian bakery products like traditional Easter bread, rye bread and rustic soda bread.

In Jovan everything is handmade, fresh and warm, just taken out of the oven. It can’t be differently, since there is a constant flow of people, busy to choose between all different kinds of bread loaves, ciabattas with olives or herbs, butter pastries with cheese or spinach, plain or full corn croissants, delicious fruit cakes. Those fruit cakes are my favorite – crispy from the outside and creamy and tender from the inside.

If you are not the sweets type, I recommend you try something more unusual – a curry stick. It’s light, crispy and tiny bit of spicy.