EAT IN ASIA / Destinations / Other destinations / Europe / Montenegro
Rich in proteins Montenegrin seafood salad
Prawns, mules, octopus, and squids! Where could they taste better than in their place of origin? Fresh, delicate and sprinkled with lemon juice. Just with salt, pepper, and some delicate herbs. Nothing that could kill the natural aroma of seafood.
Weekends are always great for a longer journey and for visiting more remote or far areas. It is time when you can both chill, relax and see something that is not affordable for you during the whole work week. It is also time for trying something new and for experience more than usually. We already enjoyed this trips in Croatia, where we had a great opportunity to try wonderful salads and meals like Croatian grilled squids.
The city of Ulcinj, Montenegro
This week we decided to go to Ulcinj in the southern part of Montenegro. It is an old city with a beautiful, small old town and with many picturesque areas. Small and narrow streets, boutique and stylish hotels and wonderful restaurants and cafeterias. This city is both vibrant and calm. Shisha bars and disco clubs mix with Muslim restaurants and shops with halal food. Multicultural but at the same time homogenous and natural.
Narrow streets going up and down, fig trees, olive plantations and colorful flowers are all over the city. Wherever you look, something beautiful will come to your eye. Add to that relaxed people enjoying their life, sea waves and a lot of sun.
Seafood salad in Ulcinj, Montenegro
While the sea is so close, that is the best place to try some seafood dishes. The best would be the one that has as many seafood ingredients as possible, just to be able to try at once a couple of them. Our choice, a seafood salad, did not disappoint us.
The serving was rich and nicely served. The variety of seafood was huge and the amount of it did really surprise us. The salad was full of prawns, mussels, octopus’ chunks, and some squids. All of them were richly scattered over the salad. It was served with some pita-style bread, olive oil and vinegar.
This seafood salad was colorful and aromatic. Iceberg lettuce created the base, however, was not dominating. It was just a background that did not create the main part of the meal. The most important ingredients were these from the sea. All octopuses’ chunks, mussels and squids were almost in the same amount. Cocktail prawns were not dominating the salad, what very often has place both in cheaper and more expensive restaurants. All in all, I could say, that it was seafood that was the base of the salad and not vegetables and greens. That is something really rare!
Apart from that, this salad was so great looking! It was full of colors! Green, red, orange, black, white, yellow, pink, and violet. Almost all colors of the rainbow! Green lettuce, red halved cherry tomatoes, orange sliced carrots, yellow and orange mussels, big black olives, pink cocktail prawns, violet and white octopuses! It was amazing! And finally, a juicy lemon quarter was laid on the plate’s verge. If it was not enough to please your eyes, the outer part of the spaghetti deep plate was nicely garnished with powdered chili.
Seafood salad's flavors
This seafood salad was slightly seasoned with basic spices like salt and pepper. It was in a light but in an extremely aromatic, Montenegrin organic olive oil and balsamic vinegar sauce. These local products were able to strengthen seafood’s flavors and at the same time add extra notes. Mild but also distinguishable notes of olive and vinegar added a subtle modification to the seafood mix. And when the whole salad was sprinkled with some lemon juice, the meat of octopuses, mussels, squids, and prawns became even softer. It was so delicate! However, it still had its texture and freshness.
I must admit, it was one of the bests seafood salads I had ever had. The richness and the quality of all ingredients was astonishing! And that is something, we will definitively miss after leaving Montenegro.
