Our first night in Athens we got a dinner recommendation from our host to go to this place:
Scholarhio
Named for the school near by it lies on the foothills of the Acropolis and about a 7 minute walk from our apartment. This restaurant is family run and it isn't like a regular restaurant with a menu that you order from. They provide Meze (kind of like Tapas) of traditional Greek dishes that you choose from. The proprietor who's name we didn't get but should have, reminded me of 'Gus' the father on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He was an adorable old man and the night we walked in he met us at the door and sat us on the enclosed patio.
At this restaurant 'Gus' brings out a huge tray of 18 traditional Greek dishes and depending on how many people on your party you choose a certain number of dishes + bottled water + bread + dessert + drink (ouzo, wine, beer, soft drinks) for a set price. In our case it was 2 people so we could pick 5 dishes + everything else for 14 euro each.
I wish I got a picture of 'Gus' with his tray but I didn't because I was so excited for the delicious food. It was 'Gus', his wife in the kitchen, and his little granddaughter working that night. It was so precious I instantly fell in love with this place before trying any food...But the food only solidified my feelings of love.
The first dish we tried were these simple pork sausages that 'Gus' told us he makes himself in the kitchen. They were delicious and perfectly cooked.
Another dish we tried was the Dolmades, beef and rice wrapped in grape leaves cooked and covered with a lemon sauce. These are delicious at any other restaurant and I love to order these but there was something about the filling and lemon sauce that easily ranks these as the best I've had.
We had the house white wine as our drink. You get a generous 1/2 liter of wine to share which was more than enough.
We of course tried the Moussaka (Moose Kaka?? -MBFGW). It is the furthest thing from moose kaka actually. It is reminiscent of a shepherd's pie. It is layered with beef, eggplant, and potatoes and cream and baked. It was extremely tasty and hearty and although I was getting full I ate most of this huge piece by myself.
A couple things that wasn't on the tray because they make it when it is ordered was fried calamari. It was cooked perfectly, tender and the breading was just enough. I'm missing this right now!
Close-up of calamari
Also, made when ordered was this fried fish. It was two good size filets of delicious white fish with mashed garlic and potatoes. The mash was the texture of yogurt and completely garlicky goodness. It was perfect with the fish.
We were stuffed from all the food. We still had dessert to get through. It is a modest dessert but very good in its simplicity.
You get two small bowls of syrupy sweet cherries to pour over the Halvas.
This was the Halvas, a Semolina based cake with raisins and the texture of Kulolo but slightly grittier. It was delicious with the syrup above.
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Aiyaiou
(Aigainon in English) is a small basement like cafeteria bakery featuring only a handful of items on their menu. The most popular being Loukoumades, the greek doughnut drizzled with honey, cinnamon, and powdered sugar. I read about this place in a travel book and we decided to look for it on our way to the National Archaeological Museum. I just want to take this time to say that Google maps let us down twice this trip, when we were trying to find our BnB in Venice, Italy and when we were trying to find this place. Honestly, you can walk right past it and that is what we did on the way to the museum so we had to try again on our way back and luckily we found it because it was definitely something not-to-miss.
They are sold in plates of 6 for about 3.50 euros. Let me just say that these little doughnuts are worth it. They are completely crispy on the outside with just a small amount of doughy goodness on the inside that sops up the honey, cinnamon, and sugar.
They are made constantly to keep the demand at bay so we got these piping hot and fresh. We were a little mad that this place was about 20 min. walk away from our BnB but we've walked further for delicious food before.
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Apieton
Our search for lunch was also aided by a travel book and led us here to Apieton. This small shop specializes in pies both savory and sweet. It is located in Plaka about 5 blocks or so from our BnB on a small busy street full of little shops.
This place has no room for lunch eaters so we took ours to go and ate our pies at Syntagma Square on newly fixed benches (after the riots a couple days before).
At the pie place I grabbed a drink for our lunch...I didn't really know what kind of Fanta this was but the can was a nice blue so I snatched it up and it was Orange Juice?! It was a nice surprise. It could have been something weird.
We got four slices of pie: two spinach feta, one Mushroom and bacon, and one zucchini, leek, mushroom pie.
Close up of the Spinach feta, which was our favorite one.
Wela chose the zucchini,
When I picked up the Mushroom and Bacon pie (below) it kind of fell apart on me and I had to eat it without most of the filling that decided to stay in the box.
The pies were crusty and the filling flavorful. My favorite part of any pie is the crust so this was definitely a winner for me.
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Salep (pronounced Sah-Lep) vendors were all over this street called Ermou. It is full of recent, high end clothing stores. We walked down this street to get home but bought a cup of this just to try it.
We don't really know what this is exactly. The vendor shook cinnamon on top and it was pretty tasty but it was kind of thick like drinking tea that was thickened with nectar (they have that at Mercy hospital...they give it to patients that aren't supposed to eat solid food).
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While we were in the Acropolis museum we decided it would be a great idea to get some dessert and a coffee at the Museum cafe to wait for the Parthenon to light up.
We tried the Baklava a traditional Greek dessert with interesting flavored ice cream. If you haven't had baklava, you should. It is layers of filo dough, honey and nuts. Almost like a pecan pie without the pecans and pie crust.
We also tried a Greek Coffee...Very strong and its not as filtered as you would like. Wela found this out the hard way when he kind of choked on the sludge at the bottom of the cup.
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Tzitzikas kai Mermigas
For dinner we headed to Tzitzikas kai Mermigas, a restaurant recommended by our host. It is definitely a place for locals and features modern greek dishes. You are welcomed with shots of Tsipoura (we will call this jet fuel or varnish) and a plate of olives. They also do a menu of Meze like Scholario but it is 15 euro per person and you get 4 dishes instead of 5 and no dessert.
Here are the two shots of Tsipoura...It was potent!
Plate of kalamata and green olives
For our first plate we wanted Greens from Crete but it took us so long to decide that it was gone before we got our order in...Our waiter recommended these: Green Balls aptly named because they are fried balls of the greens that I wanted. A plus was that they were stuffed with feta cheese.
We also ordered fried seafood. Calamari rings, prawns, chips, and fish with that garlic potato paste that is amazing.
Close-up :)
Karinto Hirin: Pork cooked in wine, capsicum (red and green peppers) , and mushrooms. This dish was tender and flavorful.
We also ordered the Kebab plate with juicy pieces of kebab (skewered meat), pita, tzatziki sauce, tomatoes, and red onion.
This place was really good! The food was delicious and the portions were hearty. It has charming quirks like all the flatware located in drawers under the table and candy bins near the door to grab on the way out the door. The candy was in Ouzo (Greek licorice liquor) and Tsipouro (Jet-fuel flavored) flavors and a creamy candy like White Rabbit. We liked the creamy one.
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Lunch the next day saw us back at Scholarhio on the foothills of the Acropolis hiding from the rain. We were the first customers and 'Gus' was happy to see us. He brought us housemade Ouzo (licorice flavored liquor) on the house so we could try it. It was potent!
He also brought us housemade Kalamata olives. These were delicious and not as bitter as most Kalamata olives can be.
We decided we would choose a couple of new dishes and we picked these huge meatballs. They were so good slightly sweet and meaty.
We also chose the traditional Greek Salad. It is only tomatoes, peppers, red onion, kalamata olives, and a huge slab of feta cheese drizzled with olive oil. This salad was so fresh and the feta cheese was perfect I couldn't stop eating it.
We also chose this Pork dish. It was pork stewed in a red sauce of tomatoes. Yum!
We got Dolmades again because they were too good.
And Moussaka which was as good as the first night. I ate most of this by myself!
Here is the inside of the patio. It is such a cozy place.
It is right a long a small narrow street so we were entertained by all the car maneuvering and ridiculous parking.
This is our last look at the restaurant that was exactly what we wanted to experience. A small family business with great traditional greek food. We were sad to say goodbye to 'Gus' and looking back at these pictures makes me want to go back.
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Strofi
Our last night in Athens, we had dinner reservations at Strofi restaurant. It is steps from Herod Atticus theatre and the entrance to the Acropolis. We got a table on the roof terrace that was enclosed because of weather but still had an amazing view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon lit up. We thought this restaurant would cost an arm and a leg but it was very reasonable with the highest priced item being an entree at 20 euro. Here is the front of the restaurant.
The host leads you up several flights of stairs to the roof terrace and we luckily were sat right up against the wall with a perfect view of the Parthenon.
When you sit down they bring you the menus and while you are browsing they bring you a plate of this: a four spot plate of croutons, water, feta cheese, and a tomato sauce. They also give you instructions: 1) Dip the crouton in water 2) Layer with feta cheese 3) Drizzle with tomato 4) Eat
Here is steps 1-3 before step 4. This little nugget was delicious! The crouton soaked up just enough water to soften it and matched the feta and tomato perfectly. I'll dream of these for a long time.
We ordered a couple appetizers. This was the Octopus salad. Tender chunks of tako drizzled with olive oil and plated with tomatoes.
We got to have our Boiled greens from Crete that we missed out on at Tzitzikas kai Mermigas.
We also tried the Anchovies. It was a big plate of anchovy filets drizzled with a vinegar olive oil. It was really good with the sesame bread provided. It was slightly too vinegary to eat alone.
Here was the gorgeous view from our table. You can see the Parthenon!
For my main course I had the Grilled Lamb Chops, a stack of vegetables, and fried potatoes. In Greece, Fried potatoes are essentially French fries. The lamb chops were crispy and cooked perfectly.
Wela had the Grilled Prawns. They were gigantic prawns!
For dessert we asked for recommendations from our waiter. We chose the Yogurt with honey and walnuts and he chose one for us.
The yogurt was traditional greek yogurt very thick and slightly tart and drizzled with honey and walnuts. It was so delicious I need a new word that transcends delicious.
The dessert the waiter chose was Baklava. It was a lot more filo dough to walnut honey filling but I loved that part. It was a great ending to our meal.
Another view of the Parthenon from our table.
We asked our waiter to take our picture and he said it's his second job. It really is because he knew exactly where to sit so we could have a great view of the Parthenon in the background.
Strofi was definitely a great restaurant. The view was gorgeous, the servers were very attentive, and the food and prices were perfect. We would definitely recommend this restaurant.
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Our last day in Athens, our flight was at 1pm so we had to make a quick dash to a couple places before heading on the hour long bus ride to the airport.
On our way to get our last taste of Loukoumades, we stopped at this street vendor to get a couple of treats for the walk.
Wela chose a regular sugar covered doughnut. It was a really good doughnut but I was saving myself for loukoumades.
We also grabbed one of these sesame rings that are sold all over the place. They are called Koulouria, sesame rings. They are a cross between a bread stick and pretzel. It tastes a lot like peanut butter because of all the sesame seeds.
We made our return trip to Aigainon for a plate of Loukoumades and we tried the rice pudding. It was so good!
We also got some custard for take-away but forgot to eat it and we had to slurp it up next to the security check point at the airport. It was delicious too!
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Here are a couple of treats we had at the airport before the flight.
Orange juice in a juice box provided by our BnB.
Bought some Greek chips...Lemon, Oregano, and Black Pepper.
Greek chocolate bar :)
And another flavor of Fanta...Apple soda
We had a great time in Athens! It was a lot more relaxing and leisurely and the food was amazing. We had a very fulfilling food time in Athens and I can't wait to return to try more things and eat at these same places!
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