My first thought travelling to Greece outside the Parthenon was “What am I gonna eat?”. As a pescatarian, it scared me a little as I saw Greece as a heavy meat country. Gyros, moussaka , soutzoukakia, souvlaki you name it ! I was happy that Greece is also heavy on fish/seafood like octopus, shrimp, sea bream, calamari & sardines. So here is a mixture of food blog and travel from my adventure in Greece.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me was the “service” aspect when eating out. The waiters are for the most part somewhat rude and distant. They take your order with no small talk and when they serve you, they are a bit rude. Not that they are throwing the plates but … When the times come to pay, oh boy….it takes forever. I pushed plates to the extremity of the table and had my credit card out … NOPE, not gonna come over. You have to call them up and then they empty the table within seconds. Again, different culture , just not use to that 😉
After you pay, as per tradition, they offer you a gift “on the house”. Could be ouzo, orange cake or another dessert.
Most of the breakfasts were average but one place stood out and it’s Overoll Croissanterie, 5-minute walk from Monastriraki Square. They have some amazing coffee and croissants. This is the pistachios croissant and as per my kid, it was 10/10. Their coffee was also quite good. Highly recommend you visit them.
All of our other breakfasts were average at best so we won’t waste more time on it.
One of the typical dishes is the fried cod. It’s good and fresh, I mean, it’s fried so it’s good 😉 The potatoes that came with it were disgusting soaking in olive oil.
Then you get the odd stuff, we found those sausages covered with pastry dough rolls at the airport. The kids weren’t fans but at 5 euros a piece they ate it all
Rhodes
We also got the chance to visit the island of Rhodes. It sits in the Mediterranean next to Turkey. There are a lot of tourist traps which is to be expected but if you do your homework you can find some amazing gems like Dafni.
You walk outside the city center to find this little restaurant with an outside table on the Mediterranean Sea. Great service & amazing food
Here I ate seafood risotto and it was super tasty. The seafood was so fresh!! Probably some of the best I ever had. I cannot recommend this place enough if you are in Rhodes.
All over Greece, you see errand cats everywhere and both locals and tourists feed them, you see bowls of water & food everywhere. In Rhodes, it’s even crazier they are everywhere and you see them lying on the ground in piles of tourists next to a shop or here he just decided to do a siesta in a pot
Kolymbia
Kolymbia is a small town on the island of Rhodes near the famous village of Lindos and its acropolis where flocks of tourists head. In between those 2 towns lies Tsambika beach with its sandy beach and crystal clear water.
We headed there early, around 10 and it was already burning. Walking just a few steps in the sand would burn your feet. Even on a burning day in Mexico, the sand isn’t as warm, I can’t explain it but it’s just that hot and you see people rushing to the water, it’s unbearable.
You can see different kinds of trees like olives, limes, lemons, eucalyptus and so on which is a drastic change from what we typically see in NA. The temperature is so hot and dry vegetation that requires lots of water wouldn’t survive.
Being on a Greek island without eating fish would be a crime. On pretty much every menu you will find fresh seabream ( similar to sea bass). Delicate white flesh fish that doesn’t have that strong fishy flavour. As pictured, it’s often matched with a lemon-ish sauce, not too powerful to take over the fish flavour but just to give it a nice boost.
Conclusion
Overall, Greece was a pleasant surprise from a food perspective. If you can withstand its scorching heat it’s definitely worth going!