🌱 MRIZI I ZANAVE AGROTURIZEM: https://www.instagram.com/mrizi_i_zanave 🇦🇱 DAVID’S BEEN HERE ALBANIA SHIRTS: https://teespring.com/stores/davids-been-here My sixth full day in Albania continued with more amazing Albanian slow food at Mrizi i Zanave, an incredible farm to table agrotourism resort in Lezhë, Albania. Come along with me as I continue my tour of this amazing resort!
My day at Mrizi i Zanave continued with lunch that afternoon. The owner, Altin, took me back into the kitchen, where I watched them make goose, quail, lamb shish kebabs, and even ice cream using coffee, blueberries, and honey! They also serve frozen blueberry juice on a blueberry tree stem!
I started with a ricotta, tomato, basil, and oil salad with crispy Albanian pite bread. The cheese was beautiful, delicate, soft, and sweet! We also had some dry and fruity white shesh wine.
Then, I tried the fiori di zucca, which is a deep-fried zucchini flower that has been battered with flour, eggs, and beer and stuffed with ricotta cheese. We eat it all the time in Italy!
Next was a purple potato with a fondue-like cheese. It was soft and earthy, and I loved the crispy outer layer of skin on the potato. The tomatoes were so juicy and in-season. They know it’s tomato season when the crickets and grasshoppers start chirping in the garden!
The sun-dried tomatoes soak in oil for 5 days. They have so much flesh, which absorbs the oil. The zucchini and okra were amazing, too. Then, I tried some blueberry yufka, which is a pasta dish similar to Italian tagliatelle. It’s covered in a rich, creamy purple sauce made from blueberries and fermented cow cream sauce!
Next was the sheep kebabs, which were fatty and juicy. The roasted goose was gamy and amazing, but the star was the sheep kebabs. Next was a yogurt cake with wild berries with a cookie crust that tasted like blueberry pie. I loved the crunchy, nutty crust. Then, I had the frozen blackberry juice on the stem, which was like a pure blackberry popsicle. It was so unique!
The blueberry ice cream and pine syrup was served inside a blackberry shell you break. The syrup is similar to honey. Then, I had some custard tart with berries, which was unreal! Then, we finished with coffee ice cream with roasted coffee beans. The ice cream was full of flavor and the beans were crunchy and phenomenal!
Then, we went to see how they make textiles and pottery in the village. Altin drove me 2 kilometers to a textile shop where a woman was weaving tablecloths. Her husband was making bread baskets using branches he has to find and put in the molds to weave. She weaves for 4-8 hours per day!
Then, we drove to another property to see some pottery be made. The man who owns the property, Vacilis, makes his own clay! He makes about 200 clay pots per day, as well as other shapes like cups and more. After he molds them, he puts them out in the sun to dry for a day. He makes piggy banks, vases, rakija pots, ashtrays, and more. A woman then paints them! He even made a huge shield with Skanderbeg on it!
Next, we went back to the hotel for dinner. My room was called The Horse. I loved the architecture and the way they had cut the stone away and put the glass windows in.
At dinner, I watched a violinist and pianist play music before we dug in. I started with some fresh juice on the same terrace as before. The vines were hung with lights and the sun was setting. We had a lot of the same appetizers as before, but we also had pork kebabs and baby goat. The pork was fantastic with the yogurt, and the baby goat flesh was so tender, it melted in my mouth. It was phenomenal!
My name is David Hoffmann. For the last 12 years, I have been traveling around the world in search of unique culture, food, and history! Since starting David’s Been Here in 2008, I have traveled to over 1,100 destinations in 77 countries, which I welcome you to check out on my YouTube channel, travel blog, and social media sites.
I focus a great deal on food and historical sites, as you probably have seen! I love to experience the different flavors that each destination has to offer, from casual street food to gourmet restaurant dining. I’m also passionate about learning about the local history and culture.
P.S. Thank you for watching my videos and subscribing!
I've had so many pastas in my life and I say this is probably top five ever.
The creaminess, the berriness, it's so fresh and it's so unique.
Good afternoon everyone, I hope you're all doing amazing. This is David Hoffman from David's Vineyard
coming at you from beautiful Leze, Albania. Today I'm here at Mirzi i Zanevi eco-friendly or eco
resort, agricultural resort. It's basically a huge farm with nine room hotel. So people come here,
they can either stay, they can sleep the night, wake up, have breakfast, explore the grounds or
you can come here for lunch, dinner, whatever you want. They make their own wine, they make their
own cheese, tomatoes, it's never ending. I mean in terms of what they have in crops, you know,
we went around the grounds this morning, we saw a little bit of everything from the process of
making wine, making cheese, making the sun-dried tomatoes just right in front of us. I mean this is
just gorgeous. What a beautiful spot in Albania. So if you're ever in Albania, it's only about an
hour and a half drive north from Tirana and you can stay here, you can explore. And what we're
gonna do now, we're gonna have lunch, we're gonna eat some delicious food, we're gonna go back in the
kitchen, see what they're making and then eat and explore. Let's go. Let's go man. Kitchen? Yes.
Let's do it. He's gonna give me a quick tour of the kitchen. There's so many things happening
right now. There's so many people here. There's like 200 people eating lunch right now. Goose. It's goose, yeah.
We made one geese. Spoil it inside with onions and plums. And we serve the sauce with plums.
So this geese is actually baked with onions and plums, so it's extra juicy, a little fruity.
And right here we have quail with pilaf. Delicious. Thank you. Shishabab of pork, this big shishabab.
We put in the fire. Inside we have a little shishabab of lamb. The best for the barbecue
and the fire is just the meat with the fat. The meat without fat, I don't think to put in the fire.
Yeah so basically because the fat becomes juicy and crunchy, so that's why you put it in the fire.
Here we prepare ice creams. We have two different ice creams. One is with coffee, another is with
blueberry and honey. It's juice of blueberry frozen. It's fresh and cold. We put together with the ice
cream of blueberry and honey. So what he's doing here is that he's brewing coffee that they put on
the ice cream. Okay so this last dessert was basically frozen blueberry juice on a vine that
was from the blueberry tree or the stem from the blueberry tree. Crazy bro, crazy. This guy's doing some
unique food. I can't wait. Slow food, it's so good. Bar on the table. You have three options to dine.
You can either go to the forest area, open the terrace or you can go to this terrace. This is a
huge open terrace with vines on top. This is where it's packed. Okay oh yeah it's fresh.
Okay so we're here sitting in the beautiful terrace. I mean this is such a beautiful meal for summer.
It's perfect. He is packed every single day in summer. Just non-stop clientele and I know why.
I mean just the food is phenomenal. The way they do everything, you know lots of love, slow food.
And right here we have a salad which is basically ricotta cheese, tomatoes, oil. Everything is
locally sourced and then right here we have bread, right? This is like, I know what this is.
It's Albanian peta. We use this for burek. My grandmother made it,
made it the peta toasted. I go to steal of my grandmother and to eat and I put in the restaurant
for this. That's amazing. Time to jump on this ricotta cheese. Wow. Phenomenal. So delicate.
So beautiful. The presentation. What a soft cheese. No salt, no salt. It's like sweet. So good.
Local wine and chardonnay. The shesh.
What a delicious house wine. It's a little dry, fruity, cold.
Super fresh like juice, you know? And I think it's super super natural.
It's more important. Oh man this cheese.
The basil, tomato and fresh cheese. Simply appetizer. So the burek, homemade burek with
pumpkin, spice, peperoncino is what's typical. The dried tomatoes we see together now. The olives,
green tomato and the salt fermented. And the normal zucchini. Here we have the vegetables,
corn and eggplant or pumpkin, yellow and the peperoncino, peperoni, sorry. That is so sweet.
The okra is typical from Albanians and another pasta made on cheese we see together, no?
In what place we made. And when fresh, simply salad with basil and tomato. We use the tomato
just in this season. As he said, we have so many different things. We have tomatoes, we have
potatoes, cheese, we got eggplant. What else? Peppers, okra, dried tomatoes. We have the burek,
more cheese, olives. I'm gonna start off with the zucca. Zucca is one of my favorite things ever.
We eat this in Italy time. Basically it's a flour. Yeah, flour and eggs and beer.
So the batter is flour and beer and eggs. Inside we have rucola cheese, zucchini flour. Next I'm
gonna try this amazing potato. It's like a purple potato with cheese. I think it's my first time
trying a purple potato. So soft. A layer of the skin of potato, the cheese. It's almost like fondue
straight up. And then obviously tomato. Juicy tomato. That's only in season right now.
So juicy, so plumpy. What's amazing about it is that this was picked from that garden right there
and he was telling me, he knows when it's season when he starts hearing like the crickets or the
grasshoppers making the chirping noises. You can hear all behind us. That's when it's season. That's
when it's time to get your tomatoes. And this is sun-dried tomatoes that has been sitting in oil
per day. How many days? Many days. And you can see them being dried right there, right now.
So much flesh in there. The flesh of tomato obviously is super dry but it's absorbed some
oil. It's the best thing ever. A little okra. Wow this one's like falling apart.
Maybe some of this. Is that a plant? Yeah. And this one. Whoa everything is like
literally falling apart. Zucchini. This is zucchini.
Albanian yufka, yes. We made it with the yufka. So this is the yufka. This is Albanian
tayetele. But this one's unique because it has blueberry and it's like literally like a purple
pasta. It's fresh, has acidity and the cow cream fermented. It's sweet and sour and has a little
fat. Before I try the pasta I'm gonna try the okra. Dude what did you do to that thing? Just
like fell apart in my mouth. And this is the pasta. How beautiful is this? This is gonna be good.
Purple pasta. I don't even know how to tell you what I'm feeling here. It's hot, tastes blueberries,
delicious pasta, almost al dente. Wow the creaminess. It's the cow milk man, look at this.
What? It's fermented. My gosh. Yeah so my friend's saying here that he doesn't like to add like
20 different ingredients to something. It's usually very simple. One, two, good ingredients
obviously from here from the farm. Fermented cow cream. Wow blueberries. I've had so many pastas
in my life. I gotta say this is probably top five ever. The creaminess, the berryness. It's just so
fresh and it's so unique. And that is the roasted goose with plums. I'm just gonna jump on one of
these. Small pieces of meat, nice fat and the sheep, so good. So usually it's a bigger portion,
obviously he brought me less. It's okay, I'll get a little more. Goose, geese, yes this is gonna be
great. I love it. When I got here, right in front right there where I parked the car,
there was like a million geese. Oh wow look at this, the amount of flesh here.
Oh I love it with the plum sauce. So if you guys have never had
geese meat before, it's a little different than chicken. It's a little gamier, okay.
Different bird, right? I'm gonna get some of that sauce. That was amazing with the star.
All right so here we have dessert. We have a yogurt cake
with wild berries and under it's like a cookie almost.
Almost tastes like a blueberry pie with the freshest yogurt you've ever had.
Cold, the bottom's a little crunchy, a little nutty. Tropo bueno. Wow. Okay so next up I'm
having a blackberry ice cream but it's more like a popsicle. This is like straight up pure
blackberry. You really like invented something awesome here. This is really cool.
Look at that, straight from the blackberry tree. Oh blueberry ice cream with pine syrup and then
you have that shell on top. The outer layer is basically frozen blackberry as well. It almost
tastes like honey obviously, very similar but it's syrup, pine syrup. Custard cream and fruits.
One last bite, let's try it. Nice fluffy custard, still very like honey-like.
Did you put syrup in here too or it's miele? I mean this whole feast was incredible. My man,
thank you. Thank you, sorry, sorry.
So this is coffee ice cream with roasted coffee. They literally just roast it as you saw
and they put it. Oh my god, the ice cream is amazing. That's the flavor of coffee.
When you bite into the coffee, the beans, nice crunch. It's like phenomenal. Best coffee ice cream
I've ever had. I'll have some more for sure. Next up we're gonna go see how they make some textiles
and some pottery in the area. This is not done here on the property, it's right outside some local
you know villagers. And here we go, look at all the geese. Never ending geese.
After a two kilometer drive, we're here. Yeah, it's super hot in Albania.
Oh okay, so they're doing this here. Wow, look at this. So this lady right here,
she's weaving basically tablecloths, right? Tablecloths and behind her, her husband,
I'm guessing her husband, he's making these baskets for bread. You can only find it at
your restaurant or another restaurant, another restaurant. Wow, so he gets the branches and he
puts it together and he makes this beautiful basket. She's a fantastic woman and made the best
quality of texture of this. We call it msala. So she does this for about four to eight hours
every single day, just non-stop weaving. So like her, she has like, you know, scarf around her head
because the heat is just out of control. It's like, he takes, you said roughly 10 to 20 minutes
to do it? Maybe to make one needed something 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah, for one, yes. Hard work to go
to the mountain to sell like the perfect little goods for this. Yeah, lots of hard work. He has to
find the branches basically and then he has to come here, put it on the wood, which is the mold,
and then he puts them in and he starts going around them. I mean that's a lot of intense
work but it looks beautiful and it's definitely a great addition to any restaurant.
So you're buying some? Yeah, I buy it.
My friend, these people are too nice. Too nice. Everywhere you go in Albania,
you're gonna feel this because it's really local. It's all about farmland. Most people,
two million of the three million live outside of Tirana and that's spread out through farmland,
through other cities. Yeah, but there's so much, so much richness and culture here.
Over here, time to see some ceramic work, pottery. Oh wow, huge vases in there. So the owner of this
property is named Vasilis and he makes his own clay. So this is his clay, right? He just pulls
it out and he goes over here and makes pottery. But you can see he has like little cups here,
pretty amazing. All right, let's see how they make it.
So Vasilis does around 200 of these every single day, just these. But you also make other ones,
right? And you have to paint. Okay, okay, so it's a long process. So starts off with clay,
comes here, he molds it, then he goes over there and he puts in the sun for what, one day? In
summer one day? Yeah, in summer because it's freaking boiling. Vasilis produces his own clay
and it lasts two years. And from the clay, he makes all this. Look at this. I don't even know,
this is like for, oh, there's a piggy bank. Oh, that's great. You have a little hole for a piggy
bank. I love it, love the red. Very Albania, right? And right here, we have the two eagles,
right? With the hand, two eagles. Here's a beautiful vase. Love the color. Colors are
beautiful. And here, more vases and more piggy banks. She's painting the piggy banks. A place
to save money. I love your work here. He also has over here, these beautiful jugs for rakia,
right? These are for rakia. Behind, we also have, this is ashtray with the double eagle.
Beautiful ashtray. I mean, so many beautiful products here. Really, really nice.
So, this is the area we're in. And this, what is this for? I guess it's for rakia, too. I don't
know, maybe a small rakia. I love this part of this country. There's so many different things
at work. Everything is handmade. Who is that? Skanderbeg. Skanderbeg. National hero. Yes,
fight with Osman. All right, guys, let's go back. It's time for dinner.
So, we just got back to the hotel. And look, this is my room right here.
This one. Incredible. Love this architecture. I want to show you the room,
and then we're going to dinner. So, this room is called the horse, or it's horse here.
Nine rooms, and they gave me the best one. The one with this epic view. Look at this.
Love this huge window. Two huge pieces of glass. Love the stone. This is an old stone building,
and they literally cut this and put the glass. Wow. Look, queen size, twin, all wood,
stone, wood, air conditioning. Really, really critical. And over here, we have the bathroom
divided by glass, right? So, you can go to the bathroom and see the sunset. Amazing.
Now, I'm going to take a quick shower, and I'll see you at dinner. Let's go.
Just delicious fresh juice. Yes. I'm ready for dinner, my man. Yes, it's full of vitamin C.
So, here we are in this beautiful terrace. You have easily like
25 tables. They're all spread out. On top, we have the beautiful vines, lots of beautiful lights,
and the sun is setting. Gorgeous. I mean, this is a true dinner. So, what are we having for dinner?
Surprise. Surprise. Perfect. That's all I need. And rakia, maybe. And here we have dinner.
I am so hungry. I'm hungry. Most things here are appetizers that we also had at lunch, right? So,
we have sun-dried tomatoes, the burek, the fieri zucca, the delicious potatoes with cheese,
then we have cheese, cold cuts, and then again, beautiful vegetables, and a salad. But we also
have, what is it, kebab? Yes, the pork shabab, yeah. The pork shabab? Yes. Okay, and then this
one? And this is the baby goat cooked. What? Baby goat, classical cooked baby goat. Baby goat. Yes.
I'm just gonna skip everything else and jump on to those. All right, guys, let's jump on
the pork. And it also has some yogurt, right? Yes. It's good. Oh, it's delicious. And this pork comes
Now, I'm gonna jump on the baby goat. Baby goat, wow. Look how yummy this is. And this goat comes
from right there. Oh, I love goat. Goat and lamb, the best. The goat flesh falls off the bone.
Delicious. Wow. Phenomenal, man. This is the best food.
I love the experience here. You know, come here. I suggest staying here at least one night. There's
nine rooms you have to book ahead of time. Come here and do everything I did. You can see cheese,
you can see salami, smoking. They're making wine. You can see pottery, textiles. Walk around the
property. If you want to book my room, which is what? The horse. Yeah, in the horse room. The
horse room. It's the best room. You can get the one below, but the top is better. Better view.
You see the sunrise, I'm sure, tomorrow morning. It's gonna be amazing. And yeah, you can come here
for lunch or dinner if you're not staying on the property. But if you're staying here, you're gonna,
you know, obviously enjoy breakfast. Let's enjoy this feast. Cheers. Thank you for coming here in
Albania. No problem, no problem. Thank you. Well guys, if you love this video, please give me a thumbs up.
Leave me a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see you in the next
child food adventure in Albania. Bono bono.
