Traditional Foods of Lithuania - Foodie Tour of Lithuania

Skanos! Bon appétit, my friends. Mark here with Walter's World, and today we're here in Klaipėda, Lithuania, and we're going to talk about what you are going to eat when you come to Lithuania. Because the thing is, is you might not understand this, but Lithuania has some of the most interesting looking foods, but tastiest foods as well, okay? So, let's get started. Now, when you go to a restaurant, the restaurant times here are pretty straightforward. Lunchtime, you know, from 11 to 1, and dinner times from 5 till about 10. Some restaurants will stay open till midnight and stuff like that. You can eat anytime. Restaurants are open, the kitchens are open all day, so there's no problem with that. So you'll be okay there. Service, service sometimes can be a bit slow, but it's fine, and you do tip 10%. But let's get to the meat and potatoes of this video. Yes, I'm a pun king today. Anyway, we'll start off with kind of like the big two that people need to have when they come here, and there's a lot of them, but one thing you want to have when you come is zeppeline. It means zeppelin. And what it is, is it can come from like this size to about this size. And what it is, it's grated potato smashed together into like another potato, and inside of it is a meatball, okay? And it may look kind of crazy when you first see it, because they also pour griottine, sour cream on top, and spirguce, which is bacon fat with bacon bits. It's so good. You can see why when I lived here for three and a half years, I didn't lose much weight, okay? But the zeppeline is like the quintessential must-have when you come here. But I will warn you, don't order anything else when you get it, because it is so filling, but it is really good. So zeppeline is one. If you come here in the summer, you want to get schaltebarsche or cold borscht. It's a pink soup made with beetroots. There's some onion and other stuff in there. They put some potatoes, they'll give it to you, put those in there. It's fantastic. But I will warn you, it scares off some tourists. I lived here for three and a half years. It almost took me a year to get the courage to actually try it. And once I did, I loved it. I mean, it's one of the things I make people try when they come here. So this is a big two. But there are other foods we need to talk about, and I'll kind of go in order. If you're looking at starters, okay? If you're going to go grab some beers with buddies, or you want to have a little snack before you eat. My personal favorite is kettuduono sussuto di marmese, which is fried brown bread. Okay, fried brown bread cut into like little french fry looking things with garlic on them. And then they melt cheese and mayonnaise together and pour it on top. Or it might be on the side as a dipping sauce, but I like the ones poured on top. It's fantastic. And the thing is, both guys and girls, they both eat this. So you don't have to worry about, oh, am I going to smell bad for my cutie? No, you're cutie. There's a lot of cuties here in Lithuania. They're going to have the garlic bread too, so it's okay. Another one you might want to have, I think it's gynē su sperguce, which is basically like chickpeas and bacon. Again, the bacon comes up a lot here. The sperguce comes up a lot here. Stir it together. You have that. That's a nice starter. You can get pig's ears. They're a little bit bigger than mine, but just as piggy-like. You can have that. Yes, you can get pig's ears here. There's different ways you can have it. You can get it where it's like cooked in a pan, almost like in a pancake-y kind of thing. Or you literally just get slices of pig ears. I know when I'm drinking at my buddy's place, you know, his wife and I, and we'll get together. And they'll just, here's a bunch of pig's ear, just sliced up for you. Now it's super chewy and the cartilage inside's a little weird at first. But after a while, you really understand, like, that really works with a good beer. Now, smoked cheese is an acquired taste. If you haven't had it before, Finland is a fantastic place to try smoked cheese. And you actually get it at the store. This is more of a thing that you might not see in restaurants or bars to get with your beer. But if you're, like, going to be sitting out with some friends and having some beer, they'll probably going to grab some smoked cheese for you and have that. That's really good. But probably the most popular starter, if you're going to have a meal here in Lithuania, is a soup. And there's a lot of different soups. I talked about the cold beet soup in the summer. There's also the cold herring soup you can have, which is good. But they have all kinds of chicken soup, beef broth, all kinds of hot hodgepodge. There's all kinds of really good soups that are here. And I do recommend you have some. And you'll see the Lithuanians really do love their soup. And they'll start their meals off with it as well. But I mean, it's cheap too. So you can have a good cheap soup that warms you up, especially if you're in wintertime, because it gets cold and the soups are fantastic. OK, now, if you're going to look at some like the main meals when you are here, like I said, there's a zeppelin and some other some other good ones here. Kotletas, which is a cutlet of pork, you know, beaten up and they cover it and fry it. That's really good here. You can get steak here very nicely. Also, pork chops or pork steaks, maybe call it a neck steak, but with like a mushroom sauce. And the Lithuanians do a fantastic job with their sauces, especially when it comes to mushrooms. So anything with pate a jus, with sauce, you're going to be OK. Hlebyska nua. Hlebyska nua. See, she even knows. She knows this great food here. And there's all kinds of other little things. One thing I like, little raviolis called koldunai. And it might be a meat or cheese in size. And they'll pour the sour cream over top. You'll notice there's a lot of sour cream and cream on the on the dishes here. It's kind of like a staple of Lithuanian food. I can't remember how much cream I ate here in three and a half years, but it was a lot. OK, so it's called koldunai. There's also you might want to have cabbage rolls or balendeli. I know I'm probably butchering the words, but balendeli, which is like a meatball wrapped in cabbage and a tomato sauce. That's very nice. Another thing you could have is the potato pancakes are good. And sometimes they might put like a bacon or some meat inside the potato pancake. That's also good. Also, if you like the zeppelini, there's also a way like the next day version where they cut it in half and fry it. That's also a nice one. But probably what I like, another pseudo version of a zeppelini, but it's got a zemecibelini or a zemecia pancake. That's the reason region that Klaipeda is in. And basically it's like mashed potatoes. Imagine like a hash brown with meat inside. That would be the best way I can explain it. And like with with ground beef inside. Oh, man, it is so good when you have that. Of course, there might be some gretina or sour cream with it, too, which makes everything fantastic. So you have that as well. Now, if you're lucky enough to go to somebody's house, like summer house or something like that, you do a barbecue here. You're going to have shashlik or shashlik, which is a shish kebab. You have the cubed pork or chicken on the skewer and they grill that out. There's restaurants that make it here. It is fantastic. And if you want kind of like a just meat and some rice kind of stuff, that's one of my favorite things here. And that's popular with a lot of the countries here in the east. And that's really good. Also, what you can have is there's a lot of really good fish here. You have a lot of pike perch fish that you'll have. That's always nice. And the thing is, the portion sizes in Lithuania, man, I mean, I lived here for three and a half years. And man, that way did not go away because the food is good and you get big portions. So if you're coming with kids like we're here with our boys, we're buying one dish and splitting it between the two. And they're still barely finishing it, except they really like it. Like Liam loves the soup here. My buddy got a big bowl. Liam ate the whole thing and then ate his whole steak. So you will eat really well. Another thing I would say with the food in general in here in Lithuania, they do not like preservatives and all those kind of things. So the food is very natural. And I mean, they'll promote that. And if you're drinking like soda and other stuff like what are you doing? Why are you putting that in your body? That's not natural. They love nature here. And that goes in with their food. So you have a lot of natural products. So you'll see you always have a salad that goes with your with your meat or in your dish. OK, there'll be potatoes with their two made here in Lithuania and all kinds of stuff. And it is very like healthy eating. I mean, it's very heavy because also you can have like pork knuckle katka. You can have that. And there's lots of steaks and pork and stuff. But just know that the food here is extremely natural. And you will. I mean, it's where you eat a lot, but you don't feel bad about it because it is good. The sausages are also good here. So that's another thing you can do. If you want to grab a little snack, there's there's little rolls you can get around here that are stuffed with ham and cheese or maybe with cinnamon or some kind of fruit or something like that. Those are very good. So you have some options out there. Also, if you're looking to have salads, since there is that natural goodness about the food here, the salads here are also very filling and very good. So you'll be OK with that. Now, let's talk about desserts. Now, I talked about Grietina that the sour cream is very popular here. They also have the stuff called Vodka, which is kind of like cream cheese and cottage cheese, have a baby like kind of things. And you'll have a lot of desserts that have that. So it might be like a cheesecake or something else or Vodka covered in chocolate at the store and stuff like that. So you will have that. The pies here are very nice as well. So I do recommend that or cakes. And the thing is, is the prices here in Lithuania to go out to eat are very, very reasonable. Now, we're here on the main, you know, the main river here. So obviously these places are going to be a little bit more expensive, but a little bit more expensive is still super cheap compared to, you know, Finland or Germany or the US. So you can eat really well at a really affordable price here. So that's really nice. So so don't let any like go. I don't know if I want to spend that money. You'll be OK and you'll have really great food. And the thing is, here in Lithuania, the food, they're very proud of Lithuania and they're very proud of their food. And it shows off in the presentation, because even if you go to a little corner restaurant that some grandma runs, the presentation will be beautiful. And that's just like, well, I'm paying three dollars for this or three euros for this. And it looks like I'm paying for a fifty dollar meal. You'll have that a lot of times here. So do enjoy that. And another thing I look at is in terms of things you might want to eat when you are here. They actually have a lot of beline or rolled up pancakes that might have chicken inside or chicken and cheese or chicken and mushroom or or it'll have varske or it'll have fruits and stuff inside of it. That was my kind of like go to light meal. I just have a pancake rolled up with chicken and mushrooms. It was really good. My kids, if they haven't been too hungry or to try to get them to start thinking about Lithuanian food, we started with the pancakes kind of stuff and they really did enjoy it. It's more like a like a crepe rolled up versus like an American pancake. So that was always a good standby, easy to do thing. Also, you might want to know is what are you going to drink when you're here? Well, I'm not going to lie to you. In Lithuania, you drink beer, period. OK, I'll lose. There's lots and lots of different brewers around here. Yes, you have sweeteners, which is a natural brand, but there's also smaller brands and micro brews around the country. So do ask around because you can buy a Vilnius beer is good or sweeteners is good. You know, you have all these different things. So do experiment and try different beers. And you'll see that it'll be sweeteners. Then they'll be extra, which is like a lager kind of beer. And then there are porteries, which is porter. And then there's the Balthus, which is the Tom's is the dark beer. There's lots of different kinds of beers. So do try and experiment with those. The liquor of store of choice is Dektyne or vodka, obviously. And sometimes you meet locals and they take you back to their house. You might get homemade moonshine, homemade Dektyne. Do be careful with that because it is very, very, very strong. And if someone looks you in the eyes with a shot and they say isveikata and drink it, that means you're up next and you're going to have a good time, let's say. But make sure you always look in people's eyes when you do cheers, OK? Another thing is Lithuanians drink. They love our bottles. They love tea. Tea is a very common thing. I used to go meet people during the day. Oh, let's go have a tea. You go and you'd have tea with people all the time. The very popular drink. I mean, you don't see a ton of the coffee shops around because all the cafes sell coffee and sell tea. So you don't have a big the Costa Coffees, the Starbucks and stuff like that. You don't have so much of that. And if you're looking for quick food, they have the typical McDonald's. They have Hesburger. There's kebabs, stuff like that. You can grab. But a lot of times it's grabbing a hot dog or, you know, for a gas station, actually, or you're getting a little how to describe it. It's like a fried pouch of dough with meat inside. So you do have that as well. Anyway, I hope this helped, you know, a little bit more about what you should have when you do come to Lithuania. And there's a ton more things out here. Cottage cheese pancakes. There's so many good things. Having the ice cream when you're here, you can have the old school, you know, from from a good old days, let's say ice cream cones that come in a package, you know, you don't have your magnum. You have your little cone with ice cream stuck inside. And it's it's one of those things you should try when you are here. And it's very affordable. Anyway, I hope that helped, you know, a little bit more about the tasty food you will have here in Lithuania. And believe me, you will have a lot of tasty food. Anyway, skanos, which means bon appetit or have a nice meal from here in Lithuania. If you want to learn more about visiting Lithuania, the don'ts of visiting Lithuania, five things you love and hate about visiting Lithuania, the shocks of Lithuania. I think you get the point. Check us on our website at Waltersworld.com. We're also on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. And we really appreciate your likes, subscriptions. We hope you have a good time eating your way through Lithuania because I know you will. And my wife, Jocelyn, she she came here and she's like, I wasn't expecting much, but I really love the food. And the boys, I know that it's hard for them to finish those plates because there's so much food, but they do pretty much finish them and then get dessert and maybe start with a soup as well. So I'll say bye from Lithuania or viso gado.