The roasted octopus is a nice touch, redolent of Venice with potatoes, celery, radicchio, and lemon.
Then came roasted octopus with a fantastic potato-and-tomato migas, and flaked cod confit.
WHAT WE LIKE Polenta with wild mushrooms, tomato and bread soup, roasted octopus, Caesar salad; black linguine with seafood, tagliatelle Bolognese, branzino, rib-eye; chocolate cake, tiramisù, chocolate soufflé.
Vying for top appetizer honors was the roasted octopus, a dish that included sautéed Swiss chard, fingerling potatoes, red onion, black olives, capers, a red wine vinaigrette and nubbins of crunchy-coated, tender seafood.
RECOMMENDED DISHES -- Lobster bruschetta, roasted octopus with potatoes, roast chicken with tasso and black-eyed peas, braised veal cheeks with celery root purée, duck confit, chocolate hazelnut cake, blueberry Bundt cake.
The weekday business lunch included spicy roasted octopus with cotechino in puttanesca sauce and juicy tender beef cheeks braised in barbera wine, at a price that made sense for local budgets: two courses for 390 koruna, about $20 at 19.5 koruna to the dollar.
I'd head right for the roasted baby octopus salad, which blends grapes and olives with the fresh, tender seafood, fingerling potatoes and puréed yellow lentils.
I'd also be happy with a special of beautifully textured roasted baby octopus, served with chunks of potato and a mustard dressing that gave it a pleasingly unusual ryelike flavor.
My guide and I spent about $130 browsing and consuming a massive late lunch of crab (steamed), abalone (roasted) and octopus tentacles (raw), still coiling and uncoiling though no longer attached to their original owner.
Highlights at Rudar included an incredibly tender roast octopus and potato dish, a surprisingly delicate stuffed cabbage; raznjici, which are skewers of grilled meat that we dipped in ajvar, a red pepper sauce; and very fine palacinka.
He uses prime regional ingredients such as bísaro pork (meat from pigs fed only on chestnuts), cured sausages and wild mushrooms, but even this far inland, traditional dishes include roast octopus.
