The strip mall sign on Linda Vista Road still has "Ryan's Cafe" on it...
It is now this...
I liked it so much during my visit with the Educators GF's (post linked at the end) that a return visit was in order...
This time, we got some of the housemade sausages - the long thin one is the "Cabanos", the the speckly one next to it is their smoked sausage. One of each we got.
More smoked meat goodness. We also got a few slices of Canadian ham and house made bacon.
There is only one price and size for Chimney Cakes now. We got the walnut one today. As for the desserts, we got two of the three (cremes and dobos, which wasn't listed on the board).
On the counter were poppy loaves and chimney cakes.
Our breakfast that we shared was "mititei", a Romanian skinless sausage made with beef ($7.99). The sausages were sliced longways and layered with grilled onions and peppers and served with fries. This was delicious and I was wishing we each had ordered our own, ha ha. But, half a service was just perfect.
On their counter was the ROM bar, a candy bar from Romania, established during the Cold War. The bar itself has an interesting history (see links at the end of the post). The label features the colors of the native flag; the bar is chocolate and rum flavored. I had a small bite weeks later and wow, that rum filling is very....rummy. One tiny bite is all I needed to determine that this candy bar would be untouched for quite awhile, at least until Bert gets to it. He may very well like it much more than me. This was only $1.
Below the bar was almond chimney cake. It wasn't too sweet. Bert liked it better warmed up. After having had the chimney cake twice now, I think I'm done.
The lady working there, Cathy, had worked for Ryan's Cafe for twenty years. She was kept on by the new owners and is learning a lot about the Romanian and Hungarian delicacies, meats, etc. I met her during my first visit and she was very knowledgable. It was also a small world because she grew up down south and graduated from the same high school as I did (a few years after me though).
The cremes/Napoleon cake. Delicious. Lovely flaky layers on top and creamy filling within.
Dobos, Hungarian layered torte...I would get this again in a heart beat. I liked that it was pre-sliced into three pieces. Look at all of those layers.
Bacon and ham which was breakfast a few days later...
Smoked sausage was part of that meaty breakfast as well. The Cabanos sausage didn't need to be cooked, just simply sliced and enjoyed.
Articles/Reviews/History of ROM Bar:
"How Romania got punk'd by a chocolate bar" King of Romania, October 2010
"How a candy bar wrapped ignited Romanian pride..." FastCompany, June 2011
"Around the World: Romania - ROM chocolate bar" Grocery Gems, June 2013
"When bad advertising goes good...ROM chocolat bar", Orchard
Previous visit to International Cafe & Deli:
April 2017
So glad we were able to visit again and try a wider variety of items. I would like to try their langos fresh next time (waiting to eat it made it soggy) as well as their savarin cake and the smoked sausage sandwich.
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