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Beef in Bucharest?15 Aug 2022

Beef, for at least 45 years under communism in Romania was the by-product of non-performing milk cows and usually found itself either as veal (the male milk-cows), or hacked off bits and pieces of chewy and tough old maidens with pieces (cuts is the wrong word) that were best served in stews.
Local efforts are starting to be made to grow and source good beef cattle in Romania, but the result is still not there and the local population still don`t really know what to do with an excellent product when it is made available (I`m speaking in general terms). I still laugh (or cry depending what I just spent) when I go to a barbeque or restaurant and get back a well-done steak when I ordered rare. The startled waiter, or my local guests will ask, incredulously, if I want to see blood or something! The importance of marbling and aging ("you want old meat, not fresh!!!") is also not understood locally. So be patient. The best options for finding good quality beef for sale are still the big international supermarket chains and we have had the best success with both METRO (a German retailer) who stock and sell good and reasonably (but not necessarily cheap) priced beef from all points of the compass and KAUFLAND Barbu Vacarescu (go to the store in Floreasca) for reasonably priced Australian, Argentine and US cuts. However, don`t expect a broad selection all the time. Your brief will be to watch, wait and buy more than you need when the opportunity is present. The last option, which is more an adventure for foodies than a guarantee of success, is to try the massive butcher section of the Bucor Obor Market. This massive open market from the 19th century must support at least fifteen independent butchers and they will merrily try to help you. But, other than the rare occasion, the beef here again caters to local buyers and as I mentioned above they want their meat as fresh as possible (so no hanging) and very lean (so little marbling). Sometimes you can be lucky and find a nice joint which is going to be best coming out of a slow cooking oven. Restaurants are unfortunately still hard to find serving anything that deserves the Bucharest-Homes stamp of approval. They tend to be very expensive when they are decent and inedible when priced for local salaries. In a pinch, try Osho in Primaverii. I know I`ll get a lot of hate mail on this point, but I stand by my point of view until proven wrong.