Category Archives: Eastern European

It’s been a while since I’ve tried a food product that I’ve never even heard of, but I’ve had my eye on the Acacia Fillo Bar since last Christmas when I was housesitting for a friend in the West End. They pretty much only serve filo products in various forms (pie/wrap/roll) and flavours (sweet/savory) but what is advertised on the blink-and-you-miss-it storefront is banitza.  

I didn’t have time to fit one in with all the Christmas eating, and it’s taken me this long to get back to it, but I finally ducked in on a rainy afternoon a couple of days ago to see what it was all about.

The banitza is a filo product, as you might have guessed from the name of the shop, and is an Eastern European concoction that layers filo with sirene, a feta cheese imported from Bulgaria, and then is baked.  The cheese-only original is called a Sofia ($4.45), but you can also get it with spinach or leek ($4.86) or with ground beef, egg and spices, which is called a Burek for $7.89. If that doesn’t suit your fancy, there are regular lunch specials as well which come with soup or salad for $8.86 .

I ordered the burek, pictured above, and it was more liquid than I had expected. The eggs and oil baked into the pie gave it a looser feel than other kinds of baked savory pies or quiches, but the morsels of ground beef and spices were tasty regardless and were transported to my mouth with out complaint. Fried potatoes and yams accompany it, along with a dish of yogurt, which I found perfect for dipping pieces into. 

The restaurant is cafe-style, with large display cases showing off desserts and I imagine they get a lot of early morning clientele looking for pastries and coffees on the run, but I enjoyed having the place almost to myself and lingering over a new treat. This was a very filling and not too greasy lunch for under $10 and if I got to the West End more often I would likely be a regular.

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Acacia Fillo Bar
1103 Denman Street, Vancouver