Greek Food

To be completely honest, the part of Greece that I was most excited about experiencing was the food. I was only partially aware of what to foods expect before we got here, basing most of my anticipation on the food blog portion of seeminglygreek.com and my limited experience with Greek restaurants in the U.S.

As it turns out, food is really awesome in Greece, and eating out is much cheaper than it was in Italy or Spain. There are a lot more inexpensive options, like buying food from street vendors or fast food joints. We ate quite a bit of fast food during our week on our own, because it's filling, TASTY, and not sickeningly greasy (although I wouldn't call it healthy). I love it, actually. Plus, orange trees line the roads of big cities. I don't know who "owns" these trees, but so far no one has yelled at us for helping ourselves to the citrus.

Pita from Greece's fast food chain, Goody's
A pita is the whole sandwich here, not just the (delicious) bread part. 

Loukoumades
Think donut holes. With cinnamon, honey, and walnuts sprinkled on top.

Street slouvaki
Basically what we would consider a kebab in the U.S.

Alan thieving an orange along the street in Olympia

A trend worth noting is the abundance of French fries. They're stuffed inside sandwiches (as seen above), and are the default side dish to almost all restaurant entrees. I'm not complaining.

Here's some restaurant food we've eaten:

Fancy restaurant slouvaki

Lamb gyro
Compare this with the first picture of this post, the pita. THAT'S what I always considered a gyro. Not in Greece!

Shopski salad

Fried fish & garlic salad

Gemistes
Rice-stuffed tomato & pepper

There were three dishes that I felt I was required to try immediately upon beginning my Greek food adventure: moussaka, pastitsio, and dolmades. Here they are:

Moussaka
Similar to an eggplant shepherd's pie.
Who knew we'd fall for eggplant?

Pastitsio
A kind of hamburger/noodle casserole.

Dolmades
Grapevine leaves stuffed with ground beef and rice.
These aren't actually grapevine leaves.
Our current hosts made them with something similar to spinach which is used in place of grapevine leaves in Cyprus (Dimitris is from Cyprus originally). The original recipe is more bitter, we're told.

Helen stuffing the leaves

We bought a Greek cookbook the other day, just like we have in the other two countries we visited. We can't wait until we have our own kitchen to experiment with some recipes.