Conversations have gone something like this:

“I imagine Bosnian food involves meats, thick sauces, you know, like goulash; wait, I’m guessing it’s more like Greek, with lamb, puff pastries and those rolled-up grape leaves.”

And so on. Folks who haven’t yet visited Drina Daisy, Astoria’s sole Eastern European eatery, continue to speculate about the fare. Actually, so do those who have visited. I’ve heard comments ranging from “The spit-roasted lamb was fabulous” to “I thought goulash was made with noodles.”

Fact is, the food at Drina Daisy draws from both Eastern European and Mediterranean influences. Look for Sarma, irresistible broth-cooked cabbage leaves rolled around risotto and ground beef and garnished with a dollop of sour cream. Or the Bosnian interpretation of spanakopita: Called Zelijanica Pita, it’s a spinach and cheese pie densely layered with a tissue-thin phyllo pastry called jufka. Better yet is the Burek, phyllo-encased ground beef that’s kissed with garlic.

And yeah, goulash, here called Bosanski Goulas’, sometimes is served with buttered noodles, although Fordinka Kanlic, Drina’s chef and co-owner (with her husband Ken Bendickson), prepares her version with hefty paprika-infused chunks of beef sirloin and a mishmash of grated veggies. Kanlic’s Bosnian homestyle cooking also encompasses thinly sliced smoked beef sausage (Bosanski Sudzuk), a diced tomato and cucumber salad blended with sour cream (Sopska) and Zapencena Rebra, oven-roasted beef ribs. But forget fish. Drina’s no seafood shop; neither salmon, halibut, prawns nor any bay or ocean bounty are on the menu.

Look elsewhere for flash and verve, too. Drina’s about comforting cuisine, pure and simple – “comfort food with an old-world twist,” say the owners, a claim backed by the meaty, cheesy and generally lightly seasoned main courses, although Kanlic will gladly kick it up a notch or two on request. Additionally, crusty house-baked bread and a mellow roasted red pepper and eggplant spread arrive with most meals, as well as handsome greens splashed with a simple vinaigrette.

Bendickson says his wife has been cooking such dishes since she was 8. The couple married four years ago following Kanlic’s move from Bosnia to Vancouver, Wash., and they opened their Astoria restaurant early this spring.

Usually once a week, diners can watch a whole lamb (generally, a sheep less than a year old) roast adjacent to the counter near the front of the restaurant, but this meat isn’t for everybody. Especially if you’re expecting rack of lamb served in its own juices or enhanced with some sort of minty spread. At Drina, as the menu points out, the lamb (called Jagnjetina na Rostilju) is cut “Mediterranean-style, which may include some bone, gristle and fat.” It’s a signature dish, slowly cooked three hours or longer. A plate arrives piled with slabs of tender unadorned flesh. Lamb isn’t always available, however, and sometimes it’s served cold, which Bendickson says tends to congeal the disparate flavors of the meat.

For dessert, there’s baklava, the buttery Greek- and Turkish-inspired dessert filled with spices and chopped nuts and flavored with honey and lemon. Drina’s lacks the intense sweetness of some, but it’s a splendid requisitely flaky rendition; ordering a slice is practically a prerequisite for dining here. Take a bite and the butter- and honey-drenched layers of phyllo seem to slide this way and that, especially if it’s recently out of the oven and the honey hasn’t had much time to soak in.

Beverages include kafa, a potent Sarajevo-style coffee poured from a dezva, a cute copper container that resembles a tiny watering can. Served alongside are a sugar cube, a small rectangular-shaped sweetened shortbread cookie called lokum and a glass of mineral water to cleanse the palate of any lingering coffee grounds. Beer drinkers should consider a half-liter bottle of Czech-style pilsner from Karlovacko. Drina offers only a few wines, even though Yugoslavia is the world’s fifth largest wine producer. Our pick is Blatina, a dry red wine that we didn’t find “fiery,” as described on the menu. The Proseck dessert wine we deemed undistinguished. Although not as sweet, the Tokaji from Hungary is a better option. Cockta, a Yugoslavian soft drink featuring an uncaffeinated cherry-cola flavor, is another option.

Dining at Drina is an unusual experience, but let’s be clear: Just because the food and wines sold here are unavailable anywhere else in the Columbia-Pacific region doesn’t warrant this Euro-Mediterranean restaurant an automatic recommendation and a favorable rating. What seals the deal is that preparations such as Sarma and Jagnjetina na Rostilju are well-executed and plenty appetizing.

That the owners have transformed an empty building into an attractive eatery is a big plus. In the understated sage green and white main dining area, the overhead lighting is soft and all 10 or so tables are graced with fresh flowers and draped with stark white tablecloths accented by forest green linens. Next room over includes the rotisserie oven and a gorgeous wood-sided serving counter. The interior, while unpretentious and welcoming, is a significant few elegant steps beyond an American comfort-food diner or cafe.

Still, Drina’s location may be lacking. The restaurant occupies a west-end-of-downtown Commercial Street space that last housed Ira’s restaurant and has been vacant for the better part of a decade. It’s tricky territory, amid a few empty storefronts and too far west of Astoria’s renaissance zone to attract much pedestrian traffic.

The word is out, however, and Drina, a commercial pioneer of sorts, may yet become enough of a destination restaurant to draw throngs to this sole stretch of underutilized real estate in Astoria’s commercial core. Especially if they relish spit-roasted lamb, exotic wines, Sarajevo-style coffee and baklava.

Contact the Mouth at The Daily Astorian, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103, phone (503) 325-3211 or e-mail mouth@dailyastorian.com