My Culinary Adventures In Athens

Wherever I travel, the most important and the first things that I research are the restaurants! It becomes practically an obsessional search, looking here and there, and then cross checking reviews or reports for the best places.  Athens though, was more of a challenge.

If it is in France, it is a lot easier of course, and I will often chose my destination based on a particular restaurant.  I like to stay in close vicinity of restaurants chosen or in some incidence stay in rooms offered if possible, be it a small village auberge, or château.

Though trip advisor reviews are everywhere, I am  dubious of them, as they are often written by people who have little to none culinary knowledge.  If I find one interesting, I will always google the specific name to come up with other input.

I study food blogs pertaining to the country I am going to visit, in order to familiarise myself about each countries particular traditional foods and the appropriate preparation.  Chowhound can be a good resource too, but not necessarily with Athens.

I have found the blog, http://www.culinarybackstreets.com/ to be a wonderful resource for Athens and Istanbul, and it was through them, that I found the great Cretan restaurant Kriti in Athens the last trip and a few this time.

If I can find menus on-line, then that can give me a good picture of the chef’s capabilities and culinary direction. In Greece, it gets more difficult, as I prefer to read restaurants reviews by Greek gastronomic sources and guides.

Not being able to understand any letters of the Greek alphabet, I happily relied on Google translations! It was through studying Greek restaurant reviews, awards and write ups that I made my definitive choice.

Neither of the Athenian restaurants chosen where that far from my hotel, as I much prefer walking to them, even in the rain.   In Athens this can be challenging because of the Greek street signs, but fortunately I have a good sense of orientation and am rarely lost!

I love Greek food! Frankly, I think it is one of the most under rated cuisines in the world. It was traditionally what I fondly call “mama” cuisine as the vast majority of dishes have been handed down by Greek mothers.

It is simple and straightforward based on the freshest of  foods from the sea and earth,  that Greece is blessed to have with abundance. The majority are prepared without a lot of fanfare or fussiness, with the exception of all of their delectable philo dough pies and desserts, which I adore.

The best way to familiarise yourself with regional foods, is to head to the food markets!   The central Athens market is one of the most original looking and colourful ones in Europe.

This is reminder of what parts of Les Halles in Paris looked like many years ago, and its wonderful that Athens has preserved all of its old Europe charm. Not surprising to find that the butchers there are extroverted and noisy sorts, competing with the fish mongers,  in yelling to the top of their lungs.

The meat division is not for the faint hearted and yes, it bothered me seeing all the carcasses hanging, as I sometimes see in Paris too, but especially the skinned lamb heads. The fish side offered a predominance of all sorts of octopi and calamari and some fish so fresh they were in rigor mortis.

The vegetable market was heavy on selling the many wild greens that the Greeks(and me) love to eat simply stewed that they call horta.  There were purple tasselled hyacinth bulbs that is a remnant of the great famine during Nazi occupied Greece, from 1941 to 1944, when these bulbs were sometimes  the only food available.

Perhaps another remnant is a beverage made out of the wild orchid root from street vendors, like the elaborate one seen in the photo.  Too thick and sweet for my taste, but popular here and in Turkey. Greeks love coffee as the traditional expresso settled in  hot sand and in cold frappes.

A bin of live snails trying to crawl out seemed out of place in the vegetable section, except of course that is where you will find them in nature!   Dried mountain herbs were everywhere for sale for the beloved Greek infusions that are medicinal.    I can certainly testify to their benefit when having a cold, since my Greek friend gave me some several years ago.

We always started out our evenings in the lovely rooftop bar of the hotel with a fabulous view of the Acropolis that appears golden at night.  Sparkling wine from Rhodes was decent if a bit light.

My restaurant choice for the first night, Akordeon, proved hard to find, but upon arrival was sadly closed, even though it was a Wednesday night!  I therefore proceeded to another on my list that turned out to be a favourite for food, friendliness and ambience.

Oinopoleio, which I can’t pronounce, is a small and wildly popular with locals restaurant, owned by a family of wine makers since 1928.  The menu is fairly limited, which is always a good sign with some predominant specialities of  grilled lamb chops, called paidakia, octopus, and calamari, all tried and utterly delicious.

The first course of warm roasted beet roots, was  excellent in colour and taste, served with a yogurt dressing and paximadia, the twice baked barley rusks that is hard as a rock and a Greek obsession.   I had the grilled octopus, which was heavenly tender and was sumptuously swimming in olive oil and lemon.

Fried calamari rings were lightly battered and likewise as tender, needing only a few squirts of lemon juice.  We both decided to forgo ordering deserts, preferring to top off the evening with loukoumades, or  fried beignets, from a  shop specializing in such.

Lukumades offered the golden brown and piping hot beignets straight from the fryer with a multiple possible toppings of white and dark chocolate, honey and various nuts.  Most Greeks love to pour their wonderful honey over them with a dash of cinnamon, but we preferred them simply with powdered sugar a la cafe du Monde,  New Orleans, which is less caloric.

The next night I had chosen an upscale restaurant that had  rave reviews called Athiri.  I did not want a Frenchified Greek restaurant, although this one was also recommended by Michelin .

The menu impressively concentrated on mostly traditional Greek dishes revisited, revised and modernised. A house smoked carpaccio of beef filled with fresh wild greens, feta and served with a green pepper avocado sauce was tantalizingly fresh and light.

One main  course was a lovely fish stifado of Saint Pierre(in english John Dory) with a pearl onions,very lemony spinach and touch of saffron.  The other main course was a very large type of greek ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and topped with succulent goat in a rich tomato sauce, garnished with a special yogurt from Turkey, that used to be Greece.

A white wine from the Peloponnese, made from a unique Greek pink grape called Moshofilero was excellent with its wonderful perfume  of white flowers , spice and vanilla.

The second night at Oinopoleio started off with more calamari and a puree of the famous yellow fava beans from the island of Santorini. We both had the grilled marinated lamb chops that were slightly charred, crispy  and crunchy and certainly overcooked like the Athenians like.  I eat lamb rosé, so I was surprised that I enjoyed these so much, but I now understand them being  one of Greece’s favourite foods. .

Dessert was on the house and was a simple fresh fruit topped yogurt that is always wonderful in Greece.  A robust and perfumed red, called Rodavgi was  from their vineyards, south of Athens made a perfect accompaniment to the lamb.

Our last night there, there was a band playing  modernised Greek music that was wonderful! Greeks eat really late, so by 11:30 pm it was a total full house, with people still trying to get a table.

I only ate out once in Ermioni, preferring to eat in the apartment with provisions bought each day.  Our daily lunch enjoyed  in the sun on the beautiful terrace was salad greens with capers, feta dressed with my wonderful olive oil vinaigrette and those olive oil croutons that can be addictive.

True to form and habit, once back home, I always like to lengthen my trip, by recreating some of the foods tasted on vacation and making traditional specialties of whatever region I traveled.

So, last Saturday night I made my own seafood stifado , flavoured with mussels, green onions, spinach and sorrel  along with a thick piece of cabillaud(fresh cod)barely cooked.   Sunday, I marinated lamb sirloin and rib chops in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and oregano for several hours and then grilled them to rosé as I like and they were delicious and mildly charred minus the crunch!

Crispy lemon and olive oil oven baked potato slices were perfect with them!  For dessert, I tweaked a recipe for Greek orange filo tarte or cake called portokalopita, using the wonderful oranges Helen had presented me before leaving Ermioni.

As usual I greatly reduced the amount of sugar called for in both the yogurt based cream and syrup that I made with blood oranges.  Though I lined my dish with baked crunchy filo, I omitted the olive oil and the torn pieces of uncooked filo in the yogurt cream. The pretty bright orange slices that I candied arranged on top were the best part.

I didn’t have any Greek wines, but my French Entre de Mer, made from Sauvignon grapes from the Bordeaux region, married well with the stifado and a red from the same region is always good with lamb.

I certainly hope to return to Athens and Ermioni again soon, but until then, I’ll just have to keep creating my own Greek dishes till I return.   There are some excellent Greek restaurants in Paris too, to help keep my culinary memories alive and well.

Fortunately, fish markets here have beautiful calamari and octopus, along with other types of related Mediterranean mollusks, but they are certainly more expensive here!  Sea urchins, that I saw dotting the sea floor in Ermioni can be had too, but again for a price.

Hope you enjoyed my little culinary pursuits in Athens and I didn’t bore you with too many details, which is easy for me to do when talking about food!

If any of you are in Paris, It would be my pleasure to take you around my own favourite markets, speciality shops and bakeries that I love to frequent.  Not only would you get loads of exercise walking all over Paris, but its a great way to experience Paris not always seen!

addendum: For those of you interested in travel to Greece, I found the online guide of Matt Barrett to be most helpful.  http://www.greektravel.com/