Romanian food in Hollywood: what to order
Order mici first. That is the answer at most Romanian counters and it is the answer at this one, at 422 S Dixie Hwy in Hollywood, Florida. After that it depends on how hungry you are and whether you have eaten Romanian food before.
Mici are beef and pork ground together with garlic, black pepper and thyme, rolled by hand and grilled when you order them. Four to a plate, with fries, fresh bread and house mustard. They are small sausages with no casing, you eat them with your fingers and a lot of mustard, and they are what a Romanian would put in front of a stranger first.
Then a ciorbă. A ciorbă is a soup soured on purpose, and the sour is the whole point of it. Perișoare is pork meatballs with rice and parsley in a sour vegetable broth, three to the bowl. Rădăuțeană is chicken with carrots and garlic, finished with sour cream, egg yolk and a splash of vinegar. Burtă is beef tripe simmered for hours in bone broth, with a hot pepper on the side, and it is the bowl a Romanian orders to find out whether a place is serious. All of them come twenty ounces, ladled when you order.
Then sarmale. Ground pork and rice rolled in sour cabbage leaves with onion and thyme, cooked slow with smoked bacon and tomato. Four rolls, with mămăligă and sour cream. If you order one thing that tastes like a Romanian holiday table, order this.
Then buy something from the case and take it home. It is sold by the pound and cut to order: dry smoked sausage with garlic and paprika, house salami hung to dry and sliced thin, slănină salted for days and rubbed with garlic and paprika before it is smoked, pastramă from pork neck brined with garlic, black pepper and coriander. Ask for a quarter pound of two or three and eat them side by side. That is how you find out which one is yours.
And if the day is right, the plate of the day: a main with a bowl of ciorbă, Tuesday through Sunday, a different one each day. Monday there is none, because Monday the doors stay shut.
All of it is on the menu, with the ingredients written under each dish. And if somebody sent you here calling it Artisan Deli, that was the name on the door until this September. Same counter.