Ranc Restaurant, Bol 09-2018

I really wanted to try some Croatian lamb under the peka bell. Unfortunately the few restaurants that have it only sell it per kg, which is too much for 2 people let alone wanting to try other dishes. Ranc does have a 140kn peka lamb on the menu, but needs to be pre-ordered. Brac lamb is supposedly deliciously well known and seemed like a perfect place to have it. There is also vitalac which is a lamb offal sausage but sadly very few places sell it, and the ones that do charge an otherworldly amount.

After a little despondence, I walked near the guesthouse to this restaurant up high above the sea and promenade below. Ranc has excellent reviews. After confirming they had lamb available (neither the peka nor the spit-roasted, but at least one) I made my decision to stay.

- Seafood risotto 90kn - savoury risotto with little prawns and mussels. A strong mussel flavour was pervasive throughout. Beards present in the tiny mussels too;
- Grilled lamb 130kn - lamb chops and a cutlet simply flavoured and good quality tender. Much of it was cooked to medium, which I thought was too much even though I requested rare-medium rare;
- Fried calamari 110kn - little fried calamari was nice. Not too salty;
- Duved (traditional stewed vegetables with rice) 30kn - this local dish sounded great and ended up being a tomato risotto with small bits of zucchini. It was very tomato-ey in flavour (obviously) and not altogether special. The serving was huge and so combined with the other risotto ended up being too much food.

I managed to try the lamb and see the quality of it. I wouldn't need to go back there again necessarily to try, although it may be the most affordable way in town to sample peka lamb if you are organised enough to pre-order it.