CAG on travel: Eating in Athens

A little delayed for 2014, but I’m finally catching up on some of the blogging I’ve been meaning to do. As usual during my travels in Athens, I have so much Greek food that I love and miss when I’m away. When I was in Athens earlier this year I had a few old favourites and some new culinary experiences.

Cutting the Vasilopita

On arrival, I finally had a chance to take part of the Vasilopita cake cutting. The cake technically is meant for New Years Day to celebrate Saint Vasili. There’s a coin placed in the lemony sponge cake batter, and whoever gets the slice with a coin in it will have a New Year with lots of luck. I had a piece of cake with my family- no coin. I also had another piece at my cousin’s business anniversary party- again no coin. On the positive side, I ate a whole lot of cake symbolising life, liberty, and happiness, so that’s working out.

Cut pieces of cake, neither with the lucky coin

I also restablished my love of late night food after a long Greek night out at my favourite crepe place. Just on Kifissias Avenue and on the way home, savoury crepes might be my very favourite post party food. I really wish there were a few more late night choices in the UK as well.

The lovely Greeks hard at work making my spinach crepe

The best place I ate during my trip was Dionysos, a restaurant directly in view of the Acropolis. Anywhere you eat while looking upon the Acropolis is pretty magical, but this restaurant was very special.

View from the restaurant

It is quite pretty, modern, and formal inside, and the food is absolutely amazing. Probably not the biggest portions of food available in Greece, but everything is really delicious at least. It’s also worth it for the winter sunset alone.

Monkfish, horta, mustard based sauce

Winter sun!

World of Pop-Up Dining and Ronnie Saunders’s charity dinners

A few weekends ago in London a friend of mine had the idea to go to a pop-up dinner in East London. I hadn’t heard of Ronnie Saunders Diners Union (http://dinersunion.co.uk/) before, but it was a really fun dining experience and really delicious food. Everyone pays £15 and it’s b.y.o.b. The venture is also supporting St. Mungo’s Trust where proceeds go towards helping the homeless and give them actual kitchen training and experience.

The restaurant is open on Rivington Street on Fridays and Saturdays and serves a 5 course menu which changes every week with different thematic cuisines from around the world. I went on the week of Danish cuisine called ‘Denmark: The Union of Kalmar, 1397 A.D.’ and even though I was quite unsure of the food it turned out to be amazing!

 Head chef Rolan Dack has brought this initiative forward under the name of his grandfather who was a ‘champion of equality and a proper London character’ and the ethos of the restaurant is that everyone pays the same and eats the same.

There is also quite a party atmosphere in the heated tent off Rivington Street, with a live band playing and long shared bench style seating. The courses of the night were ‘smørrebrød’, herring with pickles (which I also had on the street in Amsterdam), ox bavette with artichokes and roasted garlic (amazing!) and a side dish of Rødkål, which was pickled grapefruit flavoured cabbage. The dessert was really my favourite dish despite all of the dishes being really unforgettable. It was a simple apple and almond sponge cake, but it was the perfect amount of sweet and light wonderfulness.

Pop-ups restaurants in London are on the rise, such as Anna Barnett’s previous supper club now gone pop-up restaurant Get in My Gob. Get In my Pop-Up is another East London event happening on the weekend of October 24^th, and promises to be a way to bring fun back to dinner while reminding people how to connect over the love of food http://www.getinmygob.co.uk/pop-up.

My Big Fat Greek Easter- Sunday the celebration day

The gory image above, of a young goat and its intestines chilling in an air-conditioned room, are somewhat of a specialty of Greek cuisine and provide a feast on Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday. Especially after fasting from meat over the Lent period, the meal of katziki and kokoretsi (goat and its intestines) is very traditional. Lamb may be cooked as well.

Hors d'oeuvres

On the day, the preparation of the goat and fire start at 9am, because the goat has to cook for 5 hours with constant tending to the flames. While this is going on, there are plenty of snacks of eggs (the loser eggs of the red-egg game), cucumbers, feta, and olives. Tsipro, an anise-flavored aperitif is also drunk throughout the day.

Men tending the fire

The Sunday is a day for families to come together and celebrate, so it becomes a good chance to see people you haven’t seen, catch up with friends, and have guests over most of the day. The main star of the show though is the roasted meat as it is finished and served for Easter lunch.

Goat done and heading to the serving pan

My Big Fat Greek Easter: Friday – Saturday the religious bits

Every year I do my best to fly to Greece for Greek Easter, and luckily this year it’s in May, the weather is hot, and I’m missing a crap weekend in the UK! Oh and there’s the whole catching up with friends and family thing too.

In some Greek families, the whole Easter thing can be pretty overwhelming, but I have a very low key, not super religious family which means there is a little church, and a lot of eating.

Church in Piraeus (not our neighborhood, but a
close walk to my favorite Athens fish restaurant!)

On the Friday night, everyone goes to their neighborhood church, which holds a service from the evening that emulates the funeral for Christ. While some people sit inside the church, most people are outside, waiting for the light of Christ (candle firelight that is passed form the inside to outside) to come to them while they hold their candles at the ready.

 

Passing the light to each other outside the church

Also waiting inside the church is the epitaphios, or the cofrin of Christ.

Outside the church as Christ's coffin appears

The epitaphios

Once the epitaphios comes out, the procession follows it around the neighborhood, and then people go eat a meal in the late evening of meat with no blood; so shellfish or fish.

Procession after the epitaph

Lobster at Panorama restaurant

On Saturday night at 12am midnight (technically Sunday), the celebration in church of Christ’s resurrection takes place. At midnight, fireworks ring out in order to signal that Christ has arisen, and this time when the candle light passes out to to crowd outside the church, you try your best to hold the light until you get to your home.

Paleo Psihiko, waiting for the light

Once you get home you put a cross on the door with the candle to protect your house, and at home two people crack red-dyed Easter eggs and alternatively say, Christos Anesti, Alithos Anesti. Whoever cracks the other’s Easter egg and keeps theirs intact wins, but I don’t really know more than that. It’s just fun. The Sunday is really the best part- stay tuned.

The red egg game