“No dining car,” says Vasil, vaping through a cloud that smells of strawberries. A paralegal from Plovdiv, he’s been eavesdropping on my chat with the barman at One More Bar, in Sofia, about the sleeper service to Istanbul, the last leg of a journey that had begun several days earlier at London’s St Pancras station. My shoulders drop: the dining car is the beating heart of a night train. It’s where strangers become friends, food tells a story and the air is thick with soupy aromas and laughter.
“Go right and walk up to Izbata: it’s real, traditional Bulgarian food,” he says, kissing his fingertips. Leaving the din of the cocktail den, my friend Jamie and I wander around the corner and find a pink building with a basement entrance leading to asausage arrives curved around fried dill potatoes and raw red onion, followed by an earthenware pot of (silky slivers of veal, pork and chicken in rice, sealed by a crisp, doughy lid). Rich and filling, it beats anything I’d find in a European dining car.
