Neretva

First let me start off by saying that I am Ukrainian (not far from Bosnia) so our foods are quite similar. One of my Bosnian co-​workers told me about this place when I was new to the area and looking for a little slice of my heritage. When I arrived, the scenery is quite quaint, small, and very Bosnian (full of older most likely family). I was in search for a particular dish called holubtsi, but the young lady informed me its a grill and they don’t offer it there (stuffed cabbage leaves). The staff is very friendly and I really like perusing the market after a delicious meal.

Nerevta serves Croatian, Bosnian, and Herzegovinian food. I wouldn’t have discovered this place if it wasn’t for Unilocal.
The restaurant is located in the Windy Hill Village Shopping Center, the same shopping center with Blue Moon Pizza. It’s on the same side of the complex as Blue Moon, tucked away in a corner. You can’t see the restaurant from the street. There are two entrances. The left entrance goes to the restaurant and the right entrance goes to the market. Either way, it’s no biggie which door you choose.
While it’s open seven days a week, Nerevta is more of a lunch place as the business closes at 7pm each day except for Sunday (6pm). The restaurant space is small, clean and cozy. It’s peculiarly decorated with old black and white photos of Eastern European families, flags of Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, etc. The centerpiece is a small replica of the reconstructed post-​war monumental bridge over the Nerevta river, the same river for which this restaurant is named. As Ivan S. said in his review, the bridge comes complete with flowing water. The kitchen is mostly private, though peeking through the brick archway in the back, you can see they grind their own coffees.
Nerevta’s menu consists mostly of meats. They specialize in all sorts of ground beef products, from burgers to sausages. They have kabobs, roulade (rolled meat with cheese), and goulash (stew). They also have breadsticks, sandwiches, burgers, gyros, and salads. As you can tell, it’s a pretty straightforward bread-​and-​meat type of establishment. Most menu selections are reasonably priced at about $ 9 or less.
The four of us, wanting to try a nice sampling of meats, ordered two «Mix for Twos» at $ 15.99 each. A «Mix for Two» includes 10 cevapcici, 2 small pljeskavice, and 4 «mild» sausages. Cevapcici are small ground beef sausauges and pljeskavice are ground beef hamburger patties with diced onions cooked in. Needless to say, this was meat overload.
Fortunately, it wasn’t all just meat. Two small salads accompanied each order. The salads consisted of shredded lettuce, chopped onion, slices of cucumber and tomato, corn, and a sprinkling of parsley. Fresh and refreshing.
Each person at the table was served three sauces. I’m not sure exactly what all of them were, but one was cream-​based (almost like a light sour cream), another was tomato-​based (almost like pizza sauce), and the third was what seemed like Italian dressing. We used the dressing on our salad and dipped our meats into the other two sauces.
The meats were served inside two huge buns, so it make the order look like 4 giant burgers. I ate the bread and meat separately, though you can do whatever you want. The buns were big and versatile enough to make hot dogs out of the sausages and a burger out of the patty. Overall, I thought the meats were pretty good. They were tender, savory, and juicy. It’s ground beef after all. They were seasoned well and had good flavor. If anything, the pljeskavice (patty) was a bit overly greasy. I could feel my arteries clogging up as I returned to the office. Both Marty and I were extra thirsty that afternoon. I suppose they use a good amount of salt and/​or other seasonings in their meat.
The food came out fast and the service was very good. Checkout was located in the market where she rang us up individually. While the sign at the counter says there is a $ 10 credit card minimum, that’s really there just for people who purchase $ 1 or $ 2 items in the market and try to charge it.
Speaking of the market, we glanced around quickly in there. The market contained all sorts of packaged goods (bags, bottles, cans, etc.) of various groceries from Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Germany. There was chocolate and candies, coffee and tea, flour and sugar, and an assortment of snacks. Very unique stuff. I’m not sure if you can find some of it elsewhere in Atlanta. I’d definitely come back.

Delicious cevapcici on great bread with a fresh side salad for $ 8. Love it.

Another gem discovery — and a Bosnian at that! I’d been eyeing this place every time I’d go to Blue Moon Pizza, wondering what it was and whether it was any good. But I’d always forget to Unilocal it — I mean, Neretva is a hard name to remember. Today my friend & I decided to be adventurous.
First thing we saw was a mini-​grocery and further inside was the restaurant. We asked to see the menu which looked interesting, limited, the prices looked reasonable ($ 7.99 and ½ orders for $ 5.99) — and more importantly, something in the air smelled really really good. They were grilling and I love grilled food. We also learned the food is Bosnian. Yay — I never had Bosnian food before.
Neretva is a family-​run restaurant. We met the mom (hostess), the dad (chef), & the daughter (server) — all very warm & hospitable. I’m also guessing maybe there was a recent change in ownership just b/​c each person separately told us the menu is changing and the daughter was working on expanding the menu which would be ready in a week.
I asked for recommendations — our server said most popular dishes were the Cevapcici (ground beef sausages) and the Sudzukice (mild beef sausages), but she said we could do combo meals if we’d like to try different stuff. So I got a combo of grilled chicken breast (I know, boring) and the Sudzukice — all entrees also come with homemade bread, salad, and 4 different sauces (Italian dressing for the salad, pureed roasted vegetables — my favorite, sour cream & cottage cheese, and «homemade special sauce» which tasted like cucumber dill). All this for $ 7.99. I love variety.
The chicken was tender & juicy, covered with tasty sauteed mushrooms & onions. The sausages were yummy too — a little salty but I liked them. Honestly they tasted kinda similar to breakfast sausage links, and the Sudzukice which my friend got, reminded me of the Greek sausages. I liked the Sudzukice better, my friend liked the Cevapcici better.
But the bread was a unanimous wow! We couldn’t believe the size of the bread — it looked like a fluffy thick pita bread. It arrived fresh from the oven. And I loved eating it with the roasted vegetable sauce.
The portions here are generous — if you exercise portion control, you can probably make two meals. Next time, I’ll probably get a half order. And we’ll definitely be back to check out the expanded menu.
FYI — credit cards require $ 10 minimum purchase.

Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me. Oh, what’s behind this door? Let’s order this! Would you mind if I touched your monkey? Sure, strange man wearing a trenchcoat in summer, I’ll try whatever candy you’ve got in the back of that windowless van of yours. Sometimes I win, most times I lose. I’d be happy to say that Neretva Market Euro Food Grill was a win of VE-​Day proportions, but… I’d be lying.
As I drove through the parking lot leaving Pao de Mal, I spied a patio filled to the brim with swarthy guys in dark t-​shirts all smoking cigarettes. «Hmmmm,» I thought, «Euro Food? What the hell is that? But it’s pretty crowded so it should be good.»
Note to self: North Korea is also crowded. That doesn’t mean that it’s any good.
I returned a few days later to investigate. The same gaggle of swarthy men gathered on the patio. I entered… and was the only one inside. That’s when it occurred to me that 1) I was the only one not smoking and 2) I was the only one ordering food.
But I’d made the trip and was led to a table near a large scale model of a historic bridge, complete with babbling, bubbling water effect. I’ve since read that it’s a model of the Stari Most Bridge which crosses the Neretva (ah, THAT’S where they get that name) River. The bridge is historic and meaningful and listening to that water effect makes me want to pee. Hold on.
Anyway, I read the menu. Based on my vast knowledge of global geopolitics, I narrowed down the strange script in front of me to possibly Bosnian. Or Croatian. OK, so in reality my knowledge of geopolitics, especially for this region, is limited to that one dude from ER, but I know better than to assume one country over another. I’ll ask them later.
I ordered a plate of sausage. Not that I had much of a choice. Like trying to pick up at a gay bar, pretty much most of the selection is sausage. They have mild sausage and spicy sausage. Chicken was available, but since sausage seemed to be the mainstay, I ordered the sausage. When in Sarajevo, do what the Sarajevoians do.
It took a while for lunch to arrive which was strange as I was the only one in there. I’m fairly sure this restaurant is a family affair since I heard some yelling by an old guy in the back, done in such a way that could only be meant for family and not an employee. My server/​hostess appeared a later, a little shaken and giving me a forced smile as she rushed to do whatever she was being «asked» to do. AWK-​waaaard.
The food arrived and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, but it was fine. I mean, it was sausage. It’s kind of hard to screw up sausage. The bread was good too. (Was I supposed to eat this like a sandwich?) The salad was made up of red onion slices, tomatoes and shredded iceberg lettuce. The onion and tomatoes were fine, but the lettuce was on its last legs. When it comes to vegetables, it’s not time to ask «What can Brown do for you?»
I paid up at the counter. I took the opportunity to ask the person taking my cash, «So, excuse my ignorance, but what country was this cuisine?»
«The former Yugoslavia, my friend.»
«But any particular region?»
«Well, Yugoslavia has had its problems [understatement of the year– Ivan], but we identify with the entire region. We just like to say the former Yugoslavia.»
Years of intense civil war, countless deaths, and the guy still tries to include everyone. I can dig that, my friend. For that and that alone, I’m bumping you up from two stars to three.