Athens, Greece, HOLIDAYS GREECE: oh the food! the wine!! 5 July 2014

HAI everyone and…. I HAVE WINE!

Greece is a veritable happy land for the alcohol inclined.

I was completely charmed by, and won over, with the city’s amazing accessibility to cheap and good wine and beers. Not that I’m an alcoholic or anything, but I really do love myself a good glass of wine with my meal!

We ended up having two (small) glasses of wine at every lunch, and a glass (or two) of wine, or a beer, at dinner. Again, not that I’m an alcoholic or anything, but hey….. WE ARE ON HOLIDAY HERE!!

It’s 4-blimmin-euros for a 400ml jug of wine. I mean, how to not order? And it really does make the meal taste so much better!

Man, I just realised I sound like I’m throwing excuses out here, so I’ll stop.

So… food.

Athens is full of taverns (or, as they call them, tavernas). They’re perfect for lazy meals, which is the Greek thing to do. They sit there and order a meal, or sometimes just a coffee, and whittle away their time sitting there for hours. And so we had lots of relaxed meals too!

This is bread served with a kickass olive tapenade and drizzled with olive oil. Simple, but good.

This. THIS. This is a pork gyros. One of the best food creations EVER. This one is the fancy pants version, so it’s more expensive the standard roll-up version, but is way bigger. This was huuuuuge! The platter consisted of a pita (hidden under the mountain of food), laden with fries and marinated roasted pork, topped with spanish onion and served with fresh tomatoes and tzatziki.

I show absolutely NO SHAME when I say that I ate a pork gyros every day I was in Greece (maybe I missed one day, but who’s counting). Chris got sick of them, but I didn’t. I think they rank up there with one of my favourite foods ever. Just something about all that tasty pork, the fries (always my all-time fave food anyway), the spicy onions, the cold tzatziki, the amazingly delicious tomatoes. Ahhhhhhhhhh I want one again!!

This was a lamb kebab, kebabs are really popular in Greece too – chicken, lamb, pork versions. These are chunks of meat, as opposed to the shaved roasted meat (that you get in gyros). These actually aren’t as exciting IMHO, cos other countries have them.

In Greece, virtually everything is served with a side of fries. This had me in GLEE (I could eat fries every day! TWICE a day!), but it also had me wondering how the Greeks can eat like this and not be as big as a house. Maybe it’s off-set by the tomatoes that they eat, which are also featured in almost every dish. They are so huge (the tomatoes, not the Greeks), juicy and amazing that, for the first time ever, I loved fresh tomatoes.

Special mention on this walnut and syrup cake. I believe this is pretty typically Greek, because I’ve never had this anywhere else in the world, and I saw versions of this selling in bakeries in Greece.

It’s wonderful!!

I don’t even like walnuts, yet I adored this dessert. It was nutty, ultra moist and oozing syrup. So delicious. And I got to eat two slices that day, cos my kids shared a slice between them so I sneakily stole the spare one! You snooze, you lose!

And this, what Carter is holding (well, he’s holding a mini version for kids), is a traditional Greek ham & cheese pie. I’ve never had anything like this anywhere else in the world, despite it being such a simple concept – puff pastry encasing a slice of ham, melted cheese, and tomato chutney.

PHWOAR IT IS GOOD!!!!!

I also ended up with a Greek ham & cheese pie every day when we were in Greece 😛

It’s buttery, flaky, salty, oozy, and delicious. The kids loved them too! And they were cheap (~2 euros), and easily accessible. They were also B-I-G, the size of your two whole hands! Maaaan. I miss these already!