[CH] Cili Pica: Not quite Ulupica
Alex Silbajoris (asilbajo@hotmail.com)
Fri, 29 Aug 2003 10:43:59 +0000
Pods,
I have returned from Lithuania, glad to have taken the trip but also happy
to be back in the land of heat.
First, my hopes of finding hot sauce in the stores there were, um, dashed.
The only woozies I ever saw were Tabasco, and a Louisiana Gold "made with
Tabasco peppers" together in one store. Otherwise, there was only hot
catsup (less heat and more sugar than here) and some tomato sauces with some
hot pepper, sold in short fat jars. I failed to grab a shaker of red
pepper/garlic mix when I had the chance in one store, then regretted that
for the rest of the trip.
At most restaurants, I had to rely on black pepper. Sometimes even that was
not available. Few restaurants offered anything with heat, although I did
not try the tex-mex place in Palanga, on the Baltic coast.
One exception was a pizza restaurant chain called Cili Pica (where the "c"
in Pica makes a "ts" sound, so it's like "pitsa"). I noted them in several
cities, but in Vilnius they had a location right next door to the hotel. So
I tried them out, ordering a pizza called Ugnine ("of fire" but translated
as Tornado). It had a few slices of hot red and green peppers, plus a
scattering of red pepper powder. Get this, it also had dollops of
horserasish sauce! Of course, I thought it needed more heat, and this was
the only place I ever saw a shaker jar of red pepper powder.
Here is their website:
http://www.cili.lt/lt.php
Sorry about it being in Lithuanian without English translation, but just try
surfing it by images. They have some unusual combinations of toppings.
If I go back, I will carry my own pepper supply. I had thought that Customs
would be strict, not allowing something lije that through. But nobody even
checked in that suitcase when I arrived there; I could have had anything.
The US Customs was much more strict, with lots of signs warning against
bringing any fruits, vegetables, meat, etc. I was empty-handed as far as
pepper goes, but I think they might have let a jar through - but that would
be "bringing coal to Newcastle" as the UK folk say.
So Jim, about that Baltic distributorship for Mild to Wild...
Otherwise, in non-CH terms, the trip was great! I was able to use the
language in stores and restaurants, I met lots of family, and I got to see
the land, which was as lovely as ... Ohio. Seriously, in the south it was
all glacial hills and rivers, forests of pine and fir and birch. In the
center of the country, it's flat like central Ohio, but there are no huge
mega-farms; the land is divided into smaller tracts. People still use
horse-drawn plows and wagons, because many of the farms are too small for a
tractor to pay for itself. Every little farmhouse has its own little
gardens, and I saw pepper plants in many of them. People grow for their own
consumption, so they need to buy less. Even on the freeways, people sit at
the roadside, selling apples and mushrooms. (I ate more mushrooms than most
people do in a year, but I suppose many of you suspected that about me,
anyway.) The restaurnts were good (heat excluded) but customer service is
still a developing art. The drivers are crazy. I photographed the Zappa
memorial (the only sculpture of FZ in the world) and I'll post those images
on a yahoogroup titled THEBIGNOTE.
I would be happy to go back; I'd love to rent a car for two weeks, and get a
good map. It doesn't take long to drive across the country, and in Vilnius
and other cities, the "old town" sections are small enough that you can tour
them on foot by walking maybe three miles in some big loop. A dollar
bought about 3 Lits, and you can get good food and products at very
reasonable prices.
But now I'm home, back to prowl the pepper gardens and see what's been
happening in the last week. Next up, the Open Fields at the end of the
month!
- A
_________________________________________________________________
Help protect your PC: Get a free online virus scan at McAfee.com.
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963