Jeff H.
Yelp
My partner is Celiac and so she needs to eat Gluten Free. That being said, finding good, safe restaurants when we're out of the area can be a challenge. Any cross-contamination or someone just not 'believing' that she has an allergy can cause days of misery and ruin our trip.
So when our favourite Astoria restaurant wasn't available, we went looking. Several reviews led us to Drina Daisy, and one of the best things was that the menu explicitly stated that all entrees are gluten free if you don't eat the pita.
The restaurant itself is in a stretch of what looks like renovated old buildings. There was plenty of street parking and we didn't have far to walk. One of the (I learned through reviews) co-owners was sitting in the front, an older gentleman who greeted us immediately and asked us if we'd be joining them for dinner. This casual turn of phrase made you feel like you walked into a family dining room.
Other reviews have talked about how crowded the place usually is, but maybe because it was Thanksgiving weekend, we had the place to ourselves for most of the night. We were served promptly, explained our need to keep gluten items away from the table, and he was cheerful and kind about it. My partner ordered the sarma and I chose the gulas', with a lovely bottle of Croatian wine, Peljesac "Plavac mali" to go with it. We were told that Plavac Mali means small blue, and refers to the grape. It was wonderful; crisp and fruity and paired perfectly with our food.
And the food! We got that pretty quickly, so other comments regarding wait time didn't apply to us. My partner's was a rice and chopped beef mixture wrapped in cabbage leaves. My gulas' was a large spoon-bowl completely filled with braised beef and a light, but incredibly flavourful broth. We had a side salad of dressed greens and pickled cabbage, cucumbers, the like. Paired with the beef, it went wonderfully. We were also served a fruit salad, with some watermelon, strawberry, apple, grape, and orange. It looked beautiful and provided a nice relief from the umami of the main dish.
The beef I had was amazing, topped with some onions and pickled peppers. I tried a little bit of everything together and it went down beautifully. I shared with my partner and she was in heaven with every bite. I got down to the bottom of the bowl and kept finding more pieces of beef; it was a huge amount. I commented at the time that Drina Daisy didn't use fillers to round out the dish, like huge chunks of potato or something else. The beef itself was braised in the owner's recipe, but what I received was nothing but meat. It was perfect.
I tried my partner's sarma and it was excellent. The rice was rice used for risotto, not stirred or stewed as long, so it didn't make its own gravy, but you could taste the richness and fullness of it, paired with the chopped beef.
The herbs and spices used in both dishes were wonderful; you could tell you were eating food from another country, but it wasn't so "out there" that a child or a person with a limited palette would turn their nose up at it.
My understanding is that this is a family restaurant, with the husband running the front of house and the wife, both co-owners, cooking in back of house with a few people to assist. I imagine this could lead to why some people see long wait times; good food cooked to order and prepared by one chef can take time. We had an amazing experience and have deemed this high on our list of places to return to when in the area. We know it's safe, we know it's good, and we felt very welcome and taken care of.