I’ve been rotating between the tiny market down the road to get cold drinks with the “Your Market” convenience store a short uphill hike from the apartment and the longer trek up and down “Mt Everest” near the water. It’s been raining in Saranda and the road and cobblestone sidewalks were slicker than I liked, so for the last couple of days, I’ve had to make do with a series of melba toast sandwiches using the limited fillings available at Your Market.
Thank goodness for the Google Translate app that lets you take a picture of a label and have it translated. The brown goo clearly marked peanut butter is tasteless and has an off putting oily film no matter no matter how much I stir it. A quick scan of the label revealed its 85% peanut powder and 15% vegetable oil with no salt added. Luckily I was able to find Greek Nutella, which combined with the peanut paste, tastes a little closer to a Reese’s peanut butter cup.
Your Market was surprisingly lacking in jam options. I had purchased the third jar, with its clear picture of an orange, thinking it was orange marmalade. Not my first or even fifth choice for a PBJ, but workable. Turns out this is a jar of large chunks of orange peel, heavily doused with a less than usual sweet syrup. If I carefully slice up the peels, it’s edible but not great.
The final filling found at Your Market was listed as “salmon pate”. The pate, a sickly pepto-bismol toothpaste concoction, was so vile I had to throw my melba sandwiches away after the first bite. It now lives in the dustbin at the end of the apartment’s driveway.
Early this morning, the rain stopped so I decided to treat myself to a “hot” meal of any food not between two slices of melba toast. Forty-five minutes later, I was at the bottom of Mt Everest and seated in a popular seafood restaurant that was surprisingly packed at 2pm on a Saturday.
I spied seafood pasta on the menu, replete with octopus, two sizes of shrimp and even crab. Adriatic sea crab is significantly smaller than Alaskan crab and the flesh had been cooked into a mushy clump, but still very tasty. They probably should have marketed this as “octopus” spaghetti given it was 80% octopus vs the other proteins listed, but I didn’t mind.
I stalled a little after lunch/dinner for the trek back up until my food had settled and came across two wooden boats that offered night cruises, with one drink included, for 10 euro.
I’m still not 100% sure how safe Saranda is at night and given I still can’t find a taxi home to save my life, I’ll probably pass.
What I did find was Sarande’s “number one cocktail bar” per Google reviews.
This restaurant is located next to an Irish Pub creatively called “Irish Pub”, which was also packed. No idea what dishes are on offer because I couldn’t find a menu anywhere online but these might be worth a shot as well. It still takes me almost 90 minutes back up Mt. Everest with many heart rate breaks as well as a stop at “Big Market” that has non food items and a better selection of drinks, so it may be a few days before I try these out.