Meat you in Belgrade

As some of you might have heard, I have taking up a position with an international cable and satellite comedy channel in Poland.  After the usual congratulatory words and “Can you take me with you”, most people ask if I’ll keep up my blog.  Well, to disappoint my enemies, I’ll keep writing for now.  I mean, a Sumadijan Zet in the Northern Slav lands…  Has potential as a comedy (maybe I should try and pitch it ;).  Any way, there are at least three Serbian restaurants and one Montenegrin (believe it or not), in Warsaw.  So, enough Balkanesque stories to keep me going for now at least.  & I do have years of being an experienced Zet to draw upon.

So, what do you do when you “leave” for something in Serbia?  Why, you have a ispracaj party!  Mine turned out to be at a club on Ada a few Sunday’s ago.  Possessing Serbia’s largest collection of Polish wodka, kinda stupid to smuggle it back to Poland, I decided to have a “drink Daryl’s bar dry” party.  50 odd bottles of various Polish “woda” and assorted whiskies and other booze went on display.  A good friend from one of the Serbian breweries donated many a 2-4 (do we remember our Canadian language lessons?).  The wife and I sorted out a few snacks.

We kicked off at 5pm so parents could bring their children.  Turned out to be a good idea as at one point, Tyler Vuk had 15 friends to run around with!  As the evening progressed, so did the consumption of drink and food.  Say around 9pm, most of munchies had been munched.  & around 10:30pm, the party started to thin out a bit leaving, who else, but media people (crews from Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi, B92 and at least one photo journalist from Novosti).

It was around 11pm that my good buddy Sasa approached me and said; “We need to have a rostilja!”.  I responded with; “Where are we gonna find meat at 11pm on a Sunday!”…  “Ah but Daryl, this is Belgrade”; Sasa replied.  One quick phone call and something like 10 kilos of meat were ordered from, get this (& this is more for those that don’t live in Belgrade), a 24 hour butcher!  Sasa employed the help of the Publicis Creative department, major shout outs to Sonja and Aca, to pick up and transport, with a stop at a 24 bakery, all the glorious food.

In the mean time, a raging fire was constructed in the club’s outdoor roasting pit.  By midnight, the 20 or so of us left were enjoying the meaty fruits of our labor!

There are many things I already miss now that I’m out of Belgrade.  Safe to say, access to meat 24 hours a day, while never an issue for me before, is a key Belgrade element.