12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Chefs, restaurants, reviews, recipes,
culinary events & foodie features
Food doesn’t get more authentic than Drina Daisy’s
The food isn’t
complex, but the
flavors sing.
DRINA DAISY BOSNIAN
RESTAURANT
915 Commercial St., Astoria
503-338-2912
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday,
lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner 3 to 8 p.m.
By DWIGHT CASWELL
Price: $$
FOR COAST WEEKEND
Service: Ken is usually the only server,
so if it’s crowded, have another glass of
wine.
W
hy did restaurant designers
decide to drag the detritus of
abandoned warehouses down-
town in the belief that food was more
enjoyable with noise reverberating off cor-
rugated metal and repurposed timbers? For
that matter, when did restaurant designer
become a job? What happened to authen-
ticity? When did we trade the simple plea-
sures of robust and well-prepared food for
picking at diminutive servings of exotic
ingredients prepared in unexpected ways?
I’ve got nothing against innovation, but
the meals I remember most have nothing
to do with decor. More often I remember
the company, the food, or both. I think of
an unprepossessing restaurant on the docks
in La Paz, Baja California, where a chef
named Golda prepared the best fish I have
ever eaten. Or a pub in Wales where we ate
sea trout bigger than our plates while locals
chatted in Welsh, played darts and watched
their football on the telly. Or stuffed squid
street food in Barcelona.
You get the idea. I like good food, good
company and the authenticity of a place
where locals hang out.
There is a place like that in Astoria,
a small restaurant with a staff of, usu-
ally, two. Walking through the door is like
walking into your favorite little restaurant
four doors down from your rooms in Sara-
jevo. It’s a Bosnian restaurant called Drina
Daisy.
At 915 Commercial St., you’ll find a
95-year-old Italian Renaissance storefront,
the window of which displays an engag-
ing hodgepodge of memorabilia and other
items that struck the owner’s fancy. That
owner, and chef, is Fordinka Kanlic, and
once you meet her — or see or hear her
— it is immediately apparent why Drina
Daisy is much like a small restaurant not
far from the Adriatic. Both Kanlic and her
cuisine are robustly Euro-Mediterranean.
“Presentation may vary according to avail-
Vegetarian/Vegan Options: Heavy
on the meat but good salads and a few
vegetarian entrees.
Dwight Caswell photos
Fordinka Kanlic, right, owner and chef of Drina Daisy, and her husband, Ken Bendickson, the
restaurant’s wait staff.
A word of advice for Drina Daisy patrons.
Appetizers at Drina Daisy.
Dinner for four at Drina Daisy.
ability and mood,” reads the menu, and a
sign behind the bar advises, “Complaints
to the Cook may be hazardous to your
health.”
A third-generation Bosnian chef, Kan-
lic began cooking professionally at age 8
in her grandmother’s restaurant near Sara-
jevo, and became the first woman in Bos-
nia to obtain a license to open a restau-
rant. She cooks her grandmother’s recipes,
which her grandmother learned from
her grandmother. Food doesn’t get more
authentic than this.
Not long ago, four of us met at Drina
Daisy for dinner. We pored over our menus
at length. The selection isn’t immense, but
it is more than sufficient. Starters like cold
smoked beef and sausage. Several sal-
ads with traditional sour cream or lemon
dressing. And the entrees! Stuffed cabbage
leaves with meat or vegetables. Baked
pitas (not what you may think pitas are, but
filo dough pies stuffed with cheeses, vege-
tables or beef). Beef stew with paprika, and
the dish the restaurant is best known for:
Jagnijetina Na Rostiljn, choice cuts from
a flame roasted lamb that has been rubbed
with Mediterranean spices.
We were having trouble making up our
minds when one of us asked Ken Bendick-
son, wait staff and husband to Fordinka, if
the chef would create a platter for four of
something he thought we would like. Soon,
three large platters appeared, laden with
salads, appetizers and most of the other
menu items. With our beer, it all came to
about $44 a head, and was well worth it;
there were leftovers sufficient for the next
day’s dinner.
A prize of some sort should be awarded
to anyone who recognizes even three items
on the wine and beer lists, but they are well
chosen and accurately described. Wines
include Dingac (“donkey wine,” from
vineyards so steep they must be farmed
with donkeys) and Zdrepceva Kru (Foal’s
Blood). Or try pilsners from Serbia, Slo-
venia, Croatia and Czechoslovakia — my
favorite was piraat, or “pirate,” a Belgian
triple amber ale.
About dessert. There is only one, made
by Kanlic herself, and it is the best baklava
I have ever had. Not too sweet, and with
a slight lemon flavor. Savor it with one of
several teas or with a cup of exquisite Bos-
nian coffee. The Bosnians know some-
thing about coffee: Sarajevo introduced it
to Europe 500 years ago.
Kanlic’s food isn’t complex, but the fla-
vors sing. She takes simple ingredients
and turns them into something marvelous.
You’ll need no other plans for the evening.
Relaxing with friends and eating superla-
tive food in this delightful slice of Bosnia
will fill your stomach and your evening. CW