One of the best Eastern European restaurants. It is like you are in Romania and your friend brought you to his grandmother's house for dinner. The food is rich and outstanding. I always eat Goulash. The bread is made fresh and excellent for dipping in the goulash. The garden salad is exactly like the Eastern European way. The place is clean and has a full bar. I am one of the only non Romanians to eat there usually. Nelly is always there and she is very friendly. Marianna is the waitress usually and she treats you like you are a family member. I always like to enjoy the large Romanian beer Timisoreana.
Most customers are Romanian so that says alot. The layout of the place is very similar to what I see when traveling to Eastern Europe. I love it and I go there every week.
The food was average, so I would have been willing to go 3 stars, but the staff were smoking in the restaurant! For that reason alone, I will not be back.There are no smoking signs all around the place, which is a joke. If the smoke doesn't bother you, their prices are cheap and the food is decent. I had the Mititie and my date had the chicken, both were average. The best part of the food was the Nutella crepes, these were awesomely good.
Review Source:Nelly's Saloon is great find for excellent Romanian cuisine that is hearty and very filling. Â
I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Nelly, yes there really is a Nelly as you can easily identify her in the crowd with her up-do hairstyle balancing on her head like fine china. You can just tell she pours a lot of love and attention into her restaurant. Service here is friendly, prompt but not overbearing.
The food is outstanding! Â The homemade warm Romanian bread is to die for.... thick slices of hearty European white bread that is a meal in itself when accompanied with their awesome eggplant salad. Â Delish!
Fresh soups that are made just right and not salty. Â We had the beef soup and loved it! Â Portions are very plentiful and taste simply wonderful. Â Romanian red wine is also a must! .... We loved our pork schnitzel and goulash that were done to perfection. Â Plenty to take home as well.
However for Nelly's to earn that 5th star (*****), there needs to be a much more extensive line of desserts. Â I know from past experience Romanians make great tortes! Â You can't have a notable restaurant without an adequate pastry selection.
I also found the interior space to be too boringly beige and generic for a Romanian restaurant. They need to feature Romania's colorful pottery, embroidery and folk art to enhance the space better. Â Spice up those walls, Nelly!
However, Nelly's is destined to grow and prosper as I thoroughly loved this gem of a restaurant. Â You'll eat well at Nelly's Saloon!
Highly recommended!
I've been going to Nelly's for the past 4 years. I am Romanian, so I might be subjective about the food - but believe me, it tastes great! Nelly's offers decent prizes for huge portions, everything is made fresh and in traditional style (you can hear/see them prepare the meat and the other dishes in their little kitchen AND they bake their own bread) and the wine is delicious. While some people might complain about the slow service - one needs to be aware that there are cultural differences when it comes to customer service and that not all servers will have the friendliness and huge smile of an American waitress.
Weekends can be really busy at Nelly's, as the place hosts wedding receptions and banquets. Also, soccer games are popular here, so don't be surprised if you walk into a mass of men screaming, cheering and drinking.
My favorite Nelly's meal starts with eggplant salad, tomatoes and cheese; continues with coffee/wine/Romanian soda and a chicken schnitzel with mashed potatoes and pickled vegetables (ask server) and ends with pancakes or cremes (which is the best thing you will have ever tried!). There is always plenty of food to take home after such a copious meal and the sight of Nelly herself walking around all dolled up with the hugest hair-bun on her head is priceless.
Never had Romanian before, so I don't have anything to compare it to. But walking into Nelly's made me feel like I was in a small European town. Â Romanian news on TV, kids running around, Cold War decor. Â I loved it! Â The service was a little slow, but having been to small Eastern European towns, this did not bother me. Â You will not find fast-paced, in your face American hospitality here. Â And for that I am thankful. Â My friend and I sat uninterrupted, enjoying our food and drink. Â Only downside was that we totally would have ordered more wine if someone stopped by!
The food here is amazing. Â Home cooked, European comfort food. Â Filling, hearty, simple, yet delicious. Â The kind of food my grandmother once made. Â I had the pork goulash. Â A huge serving for $10. Â I just barely ate it all. Â The meat was tender and lean. Â The sauce was incredible. Â And the giant basket of bread on the table was perfect for dipping. Â
This place is clearly run by a family. Â The young boys even came over to chat with us after their mom (?) served our wine. Â And it is the family style charm that makes this place worth going to. Â I will definitely return. Â I really want to try the schnitzel!
Headed over here for drinks when we were waiting in the ridiculously long line for "Heavy Metal" burgers at Kuma's Corner. Even though we had just stumbled in off the street these people took great care of us and made our night an even more exciting adventure.
Check this place out if you get a chance, it's a lot more fun that waiting outside Kumas for your table.
I didn't have a full dinner here but what I had was pretty good. Yes, there was a faint smell of cigarettes but don't you sort of expect that at a Romanian bar/restaurant? Anyway, I had a salad plate with the eggplant spread and also another made with caviar which was my favorite. The huge basket of bread they gave us was delicious and I'm told baked fresh there. I also had the bean soup which was pretty good - kinda like what  my grandma would make. Not fancy, but tasty and full of huge chunks of ham.They serve the soup with a plate of sliced onions which I was told you put on top of the soup. I did but I dont think it added much.  I couldn't eat anymore food after that . I did try a a bite of a dessert that was like a custard filled cake with a thin layer pastry on top. It was very good. I didn't drink any booze but they did have a really good carbonated Romanian lemonade that was refreshing.
So basically, this isn't fancy fine-dining but it was different, affordable, tasty and you will not leave hungry!
This place is awesome. Â I've never eaten there, but I have had drinks on several occasions. Â The bartender is a nice older lady and she's always happy to see us. Â Best of all, she remembers our drink! Â Johnny Walker Black usually being poured before we sit down. Â Highly recommended.
Review Source:I've passed this place a hundred times over the years, and always wondered about it. I wish I'd kept wondering. This was one of the worst meals out in recent memory. I'm truly sorry to say this, as past experience with Romanian cuisine has been enjoyable. Not so much here.
First strike upon walking in was the strong smell of cigarette smoke. First, that's against the law in Illinois last I checked. Second, I can't deal with smoke while eating, but there was no choice here. I couldn't see who was smoking. I was assuming it was coming from the kitchen, which was a little unsettling.
The menu is rather small. It would be cute and charming, if the food were good. The bread is awesome. But what's up with the sour cream that comes with it? I love sour cream, but on bread??? Must be a Romanian thing. Greek salad was ok. Generous, actually. Enough for 4 people I'm guessing. For an entree I went with the pork schnitzel. They also have a chicken version. If seated near the kitchen, you can hear the cook pounding the schnitzel which is kind of cool. It was ok. The breading was good. Tasted like Mom would make. The mashed potatoes were awful. I'm fairly certain they were instant potatoes. If not, they were an excellent impostor. This dish was served with no sauce or gravy, so it was unpleasantly dry. I tasted the sausage dish. It was ok, although the sausage was a little rubbery. Their homemade fries are actually good, even when undercooked as they were.
Another pisser is the lack of choice in alcoholic beverages, unless our server didn't tell us about everything. She rattled off a few bottled beers, Romanian wine, and half a dozen or so liquors. That's it. Kind of strange considering "saloon" is in their name.
Never again for Nelly's.
Let's see: delicious & refreshing carbonated water, good & cheap Romanian wine, mmliga (a polenta-based cheese and sour cream affair), and salat de vinete (kind of like babaghanouj mixed with egg salad). Â In other words, the perfect place for an extreme hangover. Â Nelly's the old Romanian chick behind the bar smoking pack after pack of illicit cigarettes. Â So just sit back, watch some "Romanian Idol" and enjoy your 2 hour lunch.
Review Source:A Romanian friend and I were trying to find somewhere to watch the Romania vs Serbia soccer match. Â We heard that Nelly's would be a fun, rowdy place to watch the game, so we headed over. Â I may have been the only non-Romanian in the place, so I didn't understand much of the conversation (my friend A informed me that each man in the place believed he knew how to improve the soccer team; they played a terrible game). Â There was lots of yelling and it was a lot of fun.
We ordered some sausages w/o casings, which is apparently a traditional dish. Â They were flavorful and delicious. Â I would go back to this place if I lived nearby!
My tranquil dining experience was interrupted by a shriek ("AHW!") from across the room which at first I thought was the sound of someone getting punched in the stomach. Â It was just one of the patrons leaping to the center of the floor to protest a goal just scored on an intra-Romanian soccer game. Â The games are popular here; there are three screens including one giant projector screen about 5' across displaying Romanian TV via satellite. Â Apart from the charm of the occasional soccer-related outbursts (there were several), the hardwood floors and peach-colored walls create a tranquil environment. Â Supposedly there's occasionally live music; a band will be coming in from Romania later in November.
The menu favors white meat (pork and chicken), though there are some vegetarian options (eggplant salad, fasolka (navy bean soup)). Â My waiter recommended the pork schnitzel so that's just what I got. Â This tasty dish was served with a tomato-cucumber salad, *very* good homemade fries, and about half a loaf of fluffy white bread which was more than I could possibly handle. Â I'm no wine snob but the dry Romanian white was as tasty as any.
Given that so many yelpsters love to travel abroad and that Kuma's just a block away is packed to the gills- I'm surprised more yelpsters don't make their way to neighborhood joints like this Romanian place, which has been around for quite a while. Â I learned my very first word of Romanian today: Mulumesc (MOOLT-se-MESK) = thank you.
This is a cool Romanian joint with live music on the weekends! Parking is a hassle though, so plan on parking on Elston Ave. They don't have a huge menu, but if you want to try the Romanian cuisine, then you're lucky! Try the eggplant salad for appetizer, it's yummy! Also they make their own bread, which is delicious!
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