San Diego Serbian Festival

Located on a hill overlooking the western edge of Clairemont and Bay Park...

is the beautiful cerulean blue domed structure that is St. George Serbian Orthodox Church...

the site of that day's festivities...
The San Diego Serbian Festival...

I read about the festival in the paper a few days prior and was excited at the prospect of Serbian food and culture.



Admission was $3 per person (12 and under free):


Here's the top part in more detail:

Once you paid, there was a tent to your right which was a bazaar where vendors were seeling religious articles (some of the icons were quite beautiful), knockoff designer purses (Louis Vuitton?) and sunglasses, framed artwork, jewelry, and clothing.



There were three food stations. The longest line was for the actual food. The other two lines with very little wait were the crepes and coffee booth and the pastries.  I liked how they organized this. There were big signs with all of the food items listed and the corresponding price. You chose what you wanted, a nice lady served it to you on either a paper plate OR a clamshell take out box (which we did since we were planning to just take a few bites and then leave) and the total is added up at the end of the U-shaped food station. All of the food is handmade with recipes passed down from generations. One of the ladies told me that all of the "moms" made the food.

As much as I was curious to try the Kafa and Palacinke, I wanted the bureks (flaky meat pie) and didn't want to lose my place in line. There was a holdup for the hot food line because they were finishing up a batch of small sausages. That took about ten minutes.


While in line, one of the church ladies came by with a tray of cut of cheese bureks. She wanted to offer the folks in line a little something for their patience. I thought this was such a nice gesture and omg, these borek bites were so good!

Stealth shot of someone else's food - This lady got one of the bureks, a bread roll, pork, a cabbage roll and a side of either salad or coleslaw.

This is what I was giving the hairy eyeball:

Sarma (cabbage rolls):

Our Serbian feast (which was later taken home to be enjoyed and shared with Bert):

Bureks - The thin triangular one was spinach and cheese, the other two were meat and cheese respectively.

This was the other meat burek (already sampled by yours truly), one cabbage roll and four sausages (cevapcici). The container held a cheese/yogurt dip. Since the cheese was feta, I didn't like it so much.

Meat and rice were the filling for the cabbage rolls.

The flaky and buttery bottom of the meat burek:

This was the first time I've tried this version (rolled):

The Pastry choices:

So much to choose from:


It was $10 for any six (except for the apple strudel); this was $12 since I had 7 pieces. I wasn't counting properly, heh.

Walnut roll, lemon cookies, walnut square, Serbian donut with powdered sugar (other choices were plain, chocolate covered and regular sugar), a rolled up pastry filled with Nutella, a long thin Baklava and two waffle cookies (which were dense and lemony). Bert enjoyed some of it the next day with his coffee.

The folks we sat next to were so friendly. I wasn't sure if the seats were occupied but the lady told me, "The grandkids are out running around. They can sit down later"!  Her husband also was quite happy that we came to the festival. He told us, "I know our food is heavy and oily sometimes but it is good to enjoy life! Yes, you must enjoy life once in awhile!". He was such a sweet man and TC got a kick out of him.

There were so many folks at the festival from parishioners (many speaking in Serbian) to the curious like ourselves. We saw a mix of diversity here and there which I liked.

By the time we left, the food line was super long!

A musical group was performing (we had just missed the folk dance troupe earlier; their costumes were lovely)...

As fun as the event was, it had been a long day for TC and myself...out since 11 am and it was almost 5 pm when we left...

The north facing door of the church...


Clouds coming in...

The pastries at home:

The walnut roll was quite good. The waffles were too heavy and tasted like lemon, which I don't really like.

My favorite was the donut. I could've had more of that!

The Nutella roll's dough was on the thick side. Bert liked the walnut square the best.


A dance performance from last year (held at their hall):


How to make burek (not the rolled up version we had but the individual pies):


Here's the rolled up version (this one is Bosnian but the Serbian kind we had was like this):

I've had both versions. Here is the pie version (1/4 size/this was huge!) from Djerdan Burek in Queens, NY:

(photo from my "Djerdan Borek, Do Hwa" post from September 2008)

Article:
"Festival features Serbian food and culture" SD Union Tribune, Sept. 29, 2015

St. George Serbian Orthodox Church
3025 Denver St.
San Diego, CA 92117
(619) 276-5827

www.stgeorgeinsd.com

Until next year's festival!