A little while back, I mentioned the blog New York Knife & Fork.

My suspicions about its overall uselessness were confirmed when she reviewed the joint right around the corner from my house, a Bosnian restaurant called Pasha.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that a restaurant reviewer (especially a self-proclaimed one) should adhere to a certain code of ethics. Specifically, when confronted with a cuisine you know fuck-all about, you have a few options:

1) come clean at the top of the review and say you don’t know jack about, oh, let’s say, Bosnian food;
2) do a little research on Bosnian food, which includes reading about the standard dishes and eating at some other Bosnian restaurants, then proceed; or
3) just keep your trap shut until you find a place that cooks food you do know something about.

Seriously, who goes to a Bosnian restaurant and orders a hamburger and a chicken sandwich?

To be fair, Pasha is advertising its burger on a little whiteboard outside. I guess it won an award from the Village Voice in 2006. I’m pretty sure I’m doing more research than Ms. NYK&F did, just by looking up the original review (from before Pasha was Pasha).

But Pasha also clearly calls it a “Bosnian-style hamburger” on its menu–which suggests that the standards you judge it by should be Bosnian, not American. In short, don’t go in expecting a Whopper, lady.

I also find it a bit obnoxious that NYK&F suggests the sour cream (I’m pretty sure she’s actually referring to kajmak–it’s more like clotted cream than sour cream) is “better kept in the kitchen than on the plate.” Uh, who are you to say? Are you really telling however-many millions of Bosnians they’re wrong to put that on their sandwiches?

Here’s where I come clean about my own Bosnian/Balkan food experience: I’ve eaten at Djerdan and Sarajevo, both here in Astoria, and renowned for, respectively, burek and cevapcici. I don’t begin to claim expertise in Balkan food–I, er, couldn’t even tell you whether those two places are also Bosnian specifically (and I mean no offense by implying they might or might not be).

But I do know that cevapcici (mini sausage-shape rolls of meat, served on puffy round bread with chopped raw onions and a red-pepper sauce called ajvar) are a pretty common snack in the Balkan region.

So why not order those when you go to Pasha? I did. And I ordered the burger, just to see–as far as I can tell, it’s essentially the same as cevapcici, but big and flat instead of small and cylindrical. Both suffered from a little bounciness in texture, as if the meat had been overworked a bit–the cevapcici at Sarajevo were much lighter. See, I can say that because I at least have a frame of reference (and I know how to cook, so I know where the problems might come in).

In my order the other night, I preferred the sudzuk sandwich–same treatment, but with a red, spicy sausage. Very tasty.

And also, word to the wise: Skip the tiramisu and order the tufahija, a walnut-stuffed baked apple. How do I know this? It ain’t rocket science: When at a Bosnian restaurant, order the thing with a Bosnian name, not an Italian one.

Another thing I’ve ordered at Pasha is its bean soup (it has a Bosnian name too). It seems like a pretty obvious thing for a reviewer to order, as due diligence, since it’s labeled a “house specialty.” Anyway, it’s super-delicious, and I heartily recommend it–creamy white beans, very hearty and lamb-y. I imagine I’ll be eating a lot more of it when the weather gets cold.

That is, if Pasha survives the scourge of totally ign’nt reviewers like NYK&F.