Wednesday March 15 was mainly cloudy with a few drops of rain in the morning. By late afternoon the sun was out and the high was about 14C. This was a total food day in Athens as we took a tour with Culinary Backstreets called "Culinary Secrets of Downtown Athens". We have taken a Culinary Backstreets tour in Barcelona that was amazing and friends have taken their tours in Istanbul.
We met Carolina, our culinary guide at 9:30 a.m. at a square about a 35 minute walk from our apartment. Carolina was one of the originators of the Athens Culinary Backstreets tour. She has a background in art history and museum curating, but left that profession to become a chef. She has a small catering company and is working on a PBS special called "The Greek Table" which will debut next fall. We were the only people on the tour, so it was like a private tour. The Culinary Backstreets tours always involve history, market visits, and secret and well hidden culinary gems.
We started our tour at an old-school dairy bar called Stani that started in 1931 and features goat, cow and sheep milk yogurts and other specialties. We had a huge plate of sheep yogurt with walnuts and honey-- totally amazing. We also sampled semolina halvah.
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| Outside of Stani- yogurts on top and treats below |
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| Established in 1931 |
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| Huge portion of amazing sheep yogurt with honey and walnuts |
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| Carolina, our foodie guide |
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| Alain with yogurt and semolina halvah |
After the dairy bar, we decided to skip the souvlaki stop and go for a Greek coffee. We passed a statue of Pericles and Athen's City Hall.
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| Pericles |
There was a banner on City Hall advertising Documenta 2017, an art event happening throughout the City from April 8-July 16. Unfortunately, we will not be in Athens for the event.
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| City Hall |
We went to Mokka for traditional Greek coffee and an amazing treat of an eggplant preserved in sugar syrup. Fruits and vegetables preserved in syrup or molasses are often served with Greek coffee and are called "spoon desserts". The fruits and vegetables are often seasonal with orange rind, cherries and eggplants in large jars for eating now. In summer, there might be watermelon and other summer fruits. We had stopped at Mokka on Tuesday to buy some coffee beans but were delighted to return to taste their coffee. Greek coffee is very different from Turkish coffee and is made with blond beans and it is not necessary to have the coffee with sugar. It is cooked on sand over the heat to prevent it from burning.
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| Making Greek coffee at Mokka |
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| Carolina and Alain with coffee and eggplant spoon dessert |
Our next stop was a traditional loukoumades cafe. Loukoumades are dough fritters drizzled with Greek honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.
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| Outside of Krinos- operating since 1923 |
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| Getting a portion ready |
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| Our treats |
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| Another traditional setting- people eating a plate of loukoumades each |
We then went over to the Central Market, where Alain and I had been yesterday. Carolina pointed out all kinds of delicacies.
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| Intestines cleaned and neatly rolled ready for cooking |
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More meat
Carolina explained that the rabbits with their tails still on indicated that they were Greek and not imported.
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Rabbits (local)
We then went to a small restaurant in the meat market for an amazing bowl of fish soup. The restaurant was very traditional and the soups looked wonderful. Carolina said that many folks had tripe soup, which is very good for hangovers. We decided to share a bowl of the fish soup.
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| Oinomageireio Epirus |
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| Choice of Soups and meze |
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| Our fish soup |
Carolina broke up the piece of cod and returned the smaller pieces to the bowl before we began to eat. One puts lemon, olive oil and chili peppers on the soup. It was excellent.
We then went into the fish market, where Carolina showed us how to determine if fish is fresh (most in the market is wonderful as it is highly competitive). Most fish are from the islands and have the island's name under the type of fish.
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| Greek shark |
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Lots of interesting looking fish
We then stopped at a tiny tapas bar for a drink and greek tapas. We had a glass of ouzo and a glass of Greek grappa and an amazing piece of lightly smoked trout which was served hot.
Carolina in very small Greek tapas place
Great smoked trout with tomatoes, olives and pickles
For an extra treat, we had taramasalata (a dip of fish roe made with lemon and bread or potatoes) made by the owners mother. Carolina explained that the pink kind which one often gets in Greek restaurants in Toronto has food colouring and low-cost ingredients added and is not the authentic or best kind. The white taramasalata we had, was the best I have ever had.
Home made taramasalata
We stopped back at the Mokka coffee place to see their roaster and to look at jars of the "spoon desserts."
Walnuts in syrup
Coffee roaster at Mokka
We stopped next at the olive/pickle vendors located outside the market building. At one of the olive stands we tasted "new" olives and ones that were a year old. Lots of great flavours. Carolina said it is always good to wash olives thoroughly to remove excess salt that the vendors use to stop them from getting mouldy.
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Beautiful pickles and olives
Some of the olives we tasted
We moved on to an amazing Meze place called Karamanlidika by Fanis, which has incredible cured meats. The owners are from Cappadocia. We had a charcuterie plate which included pastrami, tongue, salami and other delicacies. Some of the best cured meats I have tasted.
Inside the restaurant
Our charcuterie plate
We then went to a street with herb, soap and spice stores. The soaps were often made with olive oil. The herbs were in large cabinets.
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| Soaps |
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| Herbs |
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| Another store |
We then walked over to our next tasting, passing some interesting graffiti on the way.
We stopped at a store specializing in Greek honey. We had tastes of forest, fir, pine, heather and thyme honeys from different locations in Greece. All were excellent. Honey is used in lots of dishes in Greece and is of very good quality.
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| Outside of store with Greek honey |
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Wall of honey
Our last food stop was another restaurant specializing in seafood. We had a plate of cod with garlic potatoes, which is traditionally eaten on Greek Independence Day (March 25) We also had a delicious dish of mountain greens and a plate of grilled sardines.
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| Mountain greens with lemon |
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| Sardines and greens |
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| Cod with garlic mashed potatoes |
By the time we left the restaurant at around 3:00 p.m. the place was packed. Very popular spot in the downtown area.
Carolina gave us a number of restaurant and fashion tips and we headed off to the Kolonaki area, not far from the Parliament buildings, to check out some local clothing stores. Before we said goodbye, we stopped at Kaya for one more coffee.
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| Kaya- a small coffee bar |
We noted that their coffee beans were from Caffe del Doge, one of our favourite coffee bars in Venice.
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Serving Caffe del Doge
We passed a great bar called "Low Profile Whisky Bar", which had some great photos inside. Carolina has been working on two articles for Culinary Backstreets- one on coffee shops and the other on bars in Athens. "Low Profile" is on her bar list.
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| Low Profile Whisky Bar |
We said farewell to Carolina and wandered into the Kolonaki neighbourhood. Most stores had already closed for the day but we checked out some interesting looking shops. We then walked back through the National Gardens, which are lovely.
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| Palm trees just inside entrance to National Gardens |
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| "One gate will be closed until the end of Protests".... hmm |
We left the gardens and walked by the Panathenaic Stadium, which is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. A stadium was built on the site of a racecourse by the Athenian statesman Lykourgos in around 330 BC for the Panathenaic Games. It was rebuilt in marble by around 144 AD and had a capacity of 50,000 seats. After the rise of Christianity in the 4th century AD, it was largely abandoned.
The stadium was excavated in 1869 and then refurbished to host the opening and closing ceremonies and four of the nine events of the first modern Olympics in 1896. It was used once again as an Olympic venue in 2004. It is the finishing point for the annual Athens Classic Marathon.
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| Stadium |
We saw a very nice cat that followed us for a while as we headed back to the apartment.
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Another cat of Athens
There was no way we were eating another meal. We had a nice salad, a glass of wine and some of the loukoumades we hadn't eaten earlier in the day.
We highly recommend Culinary Backstreets in any city where they operate.
A fabulous food day--- tomorrow it's history.
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