Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Back in business, Euro-style
The owners of Euro Bakery are indulging their passion once again, providing native Europeans living in Roanoke with a taste of home.
Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times
Elizabeta Sinani helps a customer at Euro Bakery, which she owns with her husband, Bari. Bureks (top) — pies made from flaky yufka, or phyllo, dough layered with such fillings as beef and onion or spinach and cheese — are Bari Sinani's specialty.
Euro Bakery's beef and onion burek.
Bari Sinani makes the dough for bureks from scratch.
Food writer Lindsey Nair
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Bari Sinani provides a straightforward, one-word answer to the question of why he moved to America: "Freedom."
But his wife, Elizabeta, goes into more detail.
"I was a refugee ... let me count how many times," she says, pausing to think and count on her fingers. "One, two, three times I was a refugee."
The first time, in 1992, Elizabeta moved from her home country of Bosnia to neighboring Serbia to escape the Bosnian war. There, she met her husband, Bari, a native of Macedonia.
Bari opened a bakery in 1994, but the Kosovo conflict eventually drove the couple out of Serbia. They left Bari's bakery and fled to Berlin for one year. Finally, in 2000, they made it to Roanoke, where they joined Elizabeta's siblings.
"All that pressure -- I didn't like it, what happened all those years," Bari told me. "I don't want to mention or remember."
In Roanoke, Bari (in his wife's accent, it sounds like "Buddy") tried to convince his wife they should open another bakery, but the fear of failure made her reluctant. So they both took jobs -- he as a machine operator for Virginia Transformer Corp. and she as a sales representative for the Home Shopping Network -- and focused on getting settled in a new city.
They worked at those jobs for 10 years and had a son, Krenar, now 5. But all the while, in Bari's dreams, he was stretching dough with his hands and pulling golden-brown loaves of bread from the oven.
All are one
Lamplighter Mall on Williamson Road in Roanoke is becoming quite the little food hub. It houses Wonju Korean Restaurant, Chubbies cheesesteak shop and a Bosnian grocery.
On Nov. 7, a new business opened quietly in the space next door to Wonju. It is called Euro Bakery and it is owned by the Sinanis.
Elizabeta, 37, and Bari, 40, say it was an agonizing decision to leave their steady jobs and open a bakery during a down economy.
"I was so sad when I told them I had to leave," Bari said of Virginia Transformer. "That is the worst thing I ever done."
But he was ready to indulge his passion once again, to provide native Europeans living in Roanoke with a taste of home, and to introduce Americans to the wonderful treats he made in Serbia.
His specialty is bureks, which are pies made from flaky yufka, or phyllo, dough layered with such fillings as beef and onion or spinach and cheese. Different versions of the burek are made across Europe.
"Basically in this kind of food, all we are one," Bari said.
In some countries, the burek is made in a round pan then cut into slices like a pie. In others, it is made in individual servings. Yet other countries roll the filled dough into a snakelike form and swirl it into a shape like a cinnamon bun.
Bari makes his own ricottalike cheese for the bureks, and the dough is made from scratch. He will make special-order bureks if customers call ahead, even layering apples or blueberries with phyllo for a sweet version.
When I visited Euro Bakery, Bari was stretching and tossing homemade dough in the kitchen. By the time he was finished working one piece, it was as thin as a piece of tissue paper, with nary a tear in sight.
Finding home
Recently, the Sinanis have been offering a lunch special of a swirl-shaped burek stuffed with beef, potatoes, onions and garlic for $3. The savory pastry is the size of a small dinner plate.
"You can't knock the prices," said regular customer Albert Cruz of Roanoke County. "The prices are very low."
Cruz, a retired Brooklyn native, drove 20 miles to Euro Bakery on a recent weekday to buy a large, Italian-style loaf of bread. He left with a sample of the daily special, which Elizabeta passes out freely.
"It's good bread," Cruz said. "I think it's the best in the valley because it's got a good taste to it."
In addition to the Italian loaves and burek, the Sinanis sell crusty sandwich rolls and individual-sized rolls stuffed with plum marmalade or a white- and dark-chocolate filling ("It's like Nutella, except better," explained Elizabeta).
Also on display are homemade pretzels and long, crescent-shaped rolls sprinkled with salt or sesame seeds. These are just big enough to be on-the-go breakfast. Spreads are provided, but the rolls are so flaky and buttery on the outside and soft on the inside that no adulteration is necessary.
Homemade tiramisu, baklava, coffee, tea, water and buttermilk, the traditional accompaniment for burek, round out the offerings.
Many of the Sinanis' customers are from Bosnia or other European countries. Because it can take a half-day to make bureks in their home kitchens, these customers are delighted to find authentic bureks for sale in Roanoke.
"Friday, Saturday and Sunday it [the clientele] is Bosnian and it is busy because nobody wants to cook," Elizabeta said. "They worked all week. This takes a lot of work to make."
So far, the Sinanis have been relying on word of mouth for business. Neighbors at Lamplighter Mall send customers their way, and Elizabeta says it's worth it to hand out samples because the flavor sells itself.
After 10 years in Roanoke, the Sinanis, who became U.S. citizens four years ago, consider it their home. And finding home again was a long time coming.
"My life went by. I was 17 when I left Bosnia. Twenty years went by like this," Elizabeta said, snapping her fingers. "You grow up faster."
The Sinanis' little boy's name is a good indication of how they feel after all they've been through to get where they are today.
In Albanian, it means "proud."
