My Greek Olympics: Eating

The hand incident:

Souvlaki shop in Monastirakix

One evening, I was walking around and ran into Jay and Semos. They were going to get something to eat and were headed towards one of the Souvlaki places on Metropolis Street at Monastiraki. We walked up to the area and looked around, I decided to get something to eat as well and Semos did his usual "this is really very nice" routines. We found a table in the area that was the Sabbas restaurant.

There were three restaurants that had tables out in the street and in the square next to Monastiraki. It seemed to be always crowded and the tables were very close together. Everything was very simple, plain wooden tables and chairs and music was filtering out from each place to round out the atmosphere. We sat down and got the menu and I tried to make out what was available. There were lots of Souvlaki and salads listed and I wasn't quite sure what the difference was, plus there was wine and sides dishes available. We ordered 3 Souvlaki with pita each, fries and a side of fried peppers with Tzatziki dip and wine.

Souvlaki, this is for Kabobs

As we were sitting there, we could see an endless stream of people walking by and a bunch of children begging for money. Semos said they were Albanian and they worked for organized crime groups. Some children tried to beg from us, but I ignored them. We got our food and it wasn't bad. The meat seemed a little strange, but it tasted OK, the peppers were good as was the rest. We all ate our food and drank some wine or beer. I found out that they put fries on the Souvlaki and call it 'vegetables'.

A standard Souvlaki consists of a log of grilled meat, some sliced onions, tomatoes and parsley sprinkled on top and fries if ordered, then a large blob of Tzatziki all on a pita dread. The peppers were long yellow peppers that where fried in oil so the skin was soft, they were not hot at all.

As we ate, a man came by selling little trinkets, Jay said no to him as well did Semos. The guy didn't leave and kept asking if we wanted the stuff. Jay said no and with a hand gesture to shoo him away. The guy got very angry and started to raise his voice, but Semos immediately got up and started to say 'no she didn't mean it' (which is how I interpreted it). Basically Jay had inadvertently made a hand gesture that meant the guy was sub-human or like the dead. It was an old Greek sign for people thrown from a village for a crime, the 'dead to us' gesture of an open hand to the face. It is a very bad gesture and was based on the fact that when someone was thrown from a village, a handful of ash was smeared on the face. Basically it was ash of the dead and it was considered to be a very bad thing to do.

Semos calmed him down and explained that Jay didn't mean it and it was an accident and she didn't actually give him the hand. Jay didn't care and said she meant it and couldn't careless what the guy thought. She was more than willing to fight the guy it seemed. Semos was always trying to fix things and see everything on the better side. I just watched the show. Our bill was about 7Euro each and we paid and left.

Drinking:

At first, Ron would have a glass of wine with us in the evening, while David drank his 7 or 8 beers, maybe I would have 2 or 3. Ron would just have a glass and have a good time with us. This later changed when Ron's wife came to visit, Chris joked that Ron would stay out late and drink a lot of beer and she was not happy. Soon Ron was under lock and key and he never came out with us like he did before. The beers were not cheep and they were in the 5 to 10 euro range which translated to 6 to 12 dollars. So David drinking 8 beers could easily spend close to 100 dollars a night with food. I would only drink a few, but I had to keep pace with David. I drank too much and spent too much on beer, but a coffee wasn't much less.

On most evenings, after changing from work clothes, we would meet at the annex and grab a large table at the front of the place. First one would order a plate of cucumbers, olives and dip. David would text me with one of his standard messages, "beer me". As others would show up and more drinks had, Leo the owner would come out and have a plate of snacks sent out which would be more vegetables with some meats as well.

After at least 2 or 3 beers we would all walk off to dinner somewhere and it could be as late as 9 or 10 o'clock. Only tourists eat at 5 or 6, most hawkers would try to get us to come in by saying "Nice dinner" or "Serving dinner". I would always say it is way too early to eat and walk by. After a while most people recognized me and wouldn't even ask.

George soon embarrassed us all at the annex by ogling women as they past. There was a low hedge in a planter by the table and George would part them to look at girls passing. It was embarrassing and soon we made George sit away form the bush. Unfortunately George kept doing stupid things like that and we didn't appreciate him for that.

Eating:

I soon get accustom to Athens, at least our small part of it. We would go to a standard few restaurants in the area and one was Poliathina. It was where one of my first real dinners in a standard Greek restaurant was and I thought it was great. We would have many drinks at the Metropol or other places, but go out to a restaurant to eat the main meal. We got to know everyone at all the places we would hangout at and become friends with a lot of people. The food at  Poliathina was very good but simple. The preparation of most items is simple in most cases which meant the food was either fried or baked. Fish is grilled as is lamb chops, but in some cases stewed.

Some of the food we would order was the country sausage or Lakoniko and the many dips and salads (Horiatiki or "Greek country salad", fish roe, eggplant and spicy feta, and cucumber - Taramosalata, Melitzanosalata, Skorthalia, Tzatziki). They had grilled sardines and lamb chops (Paithakia), stewed pork in tomatoes, stewed chicken in tomatoes (Stifado) and maybe Moussakas or Pastitsio (like macaroni and cheese). We would also get the stuffed zucchini which came in a white lemon sauce or roasted potatoes. Different kinds of boiled greens and fried vegetables like eggplant or zucchini.

We would just go into the kitchen and see what they had fresh and pick out stuff that we thought looked good. They would open drawers and pull out fish, show pans of baked dishes or stewed greens. We could pick what we wanted and they would bring it to us. It is very common to do that and if they don't let you, you leave. If Semos was with us he would order so much food and then say he was ordering it for us, he would get very carried away. At the end of dinner, Vassili would come out with a tray of cut fruit with chocolate sauce over the top or panicotti or both.

Vassili, at Poliathina is always happy to see us. His Russian waitress always smiles, but she doesn't speak much English. Later I found out that Vassili had rescued her from a Russian smuggling group. She would have been sold into prostitution if Vassili didn't pay for her, she was very grateful. The kitchen staff and other waiters always would come out and say hello or give us good service. I liked that place very much and I would be back many times in the future.

Noodle bar:

A block from the hotel was the "Noodle Bar". A small place owned by an Australian Greek who when he moved back to Athens missed the Asian food he had in Australia. So he opened a place that served a Thai type noodle dish, like wok fried noodles. It was good and a change of pace from the Greek food we ate every day. It was expensive compared to the other food available, but to us it was OK.

We would spend 20 Euro on dinner so it wasn't that much for us to pay 12 Euro for a plate and a beer. They were open late and were only a block away. It was very convenient and we made it a habit of eating there at least once a week.