Cant say Im really a good cook as i dont really enjoy much cooking ( maybe i do but i dont like the preparation), but hubby is all praises to whatever i prepare or put on the table and he tells everybody how a good cook I am..I guess, I learned the hard way when we went into a restaurant venture ( i´ve written about it in my previous post )
When hubby and I first lived together, I was a skinny girl that dont enjoy so much eating except for some favorite desserts. I let hubby believed that I cant cook as I can see that he enjoys cooking and also because I have no knowledge about international or portuguese cuisine.Besides, hubby is very meticulous with the preparation of food especially when he´s preparing something from a recipe book. Everything must be by the book and its not my way especially when im so hungry I like to invent.I always complain that he takes so much time preparing our food and it takes only less than half an hour for us to devour it.
We were still in Dubai, UAE at the time, he comes for lunch and off from work at 12:30 and I finish mine at 1:00, as we live near his work at Dubai Drydocks and I work in mostly in the field, i have no exact time of arrival for lunch. Hubby used to checked my arrival from the kitchen window as he can see our car park from there. He usually prepares me a an orange juice with a little bit of vodka and two crackers with liver pate or cream cheese for an apetizer. Ai´nt he sweet? Its how I was conquered! Lol !!!
He would served me a big piece of steak and would insist that i must eat all of it, and for dessert? He buys me always my favorite black forest cake at Hyatt or the Lebanese sweets in one famous pastry shop! Aaahhhh,those were the days...... This went on for three years until we came to Portugal to live here for good...and bad...
Speaking about food in Greece,the most famous dish is Mousaka, it is a traditional dish prepared with a layer of grilled slices of aubergine in a baking dish, toped with sauted minced meat, toped again with slices of aubergine then covered with white bechamel sauce. At least, Its how I learned how to prepare it taken from one of the recipe book we have. Another hubbys passion, collecting recipe book from all over the world!
We ordered Mousaka in the restaurant to taste the real one, sorry to say i did´nt enjoy it much ( maybe because I prefer my own way) but the Greek salad that we ordered apart was good as it is always served with real fresh crispy cucumber, quartered tomatoes, onion, green pepper, topped with a very good 1 cm thick slice of Feta Cheese!
In another restaurant, we ate an aubergine salad, this was different...its about 4 pieces of a slice grilled aubergine rolled and filled with i think a chick peas paste and smashed meat of the aubergine drizled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano, beautifully presented in plate as i will show you in the photo below.It was very good!!!
I also had a grilled octopus and hubby had the typical Gyros, slices of grilled pork meat, served with pita bread, fried potato, greek salad with a youghurt dressing.
And for dessert, we had Cassata, some sort of ice cream and we have to drink our espresso with it.
Eating in restaurants in Athens is not so cheap,our normal bill per meal always cost us no less than 45 euros for two. Comparing to Portugal when it comes to meals in restaurants, we served better here and cheaper in price. Our seafoods here and so with the spanish are better prepared and more tasty.
But food aside, Greece has so many more things to offer, so many places to explore and we really enjoyed our holiday .
By the way, we were eating at the roadside splanade next to an ancient building and the name of the Taberna ( restaurant) I could,nt read as it was in greek so I asked the waiter about the name and he told me something like Espinges Taberna in Plaka Square.
2 comments:
Oh my. I must say I came to thank you for visiting my blog.
Then I read your post for today and saw your photos. The pictures you took are very good.
And finally I saw the octopus and that brought back lots of memories of days, long ago, in 1953 and 1954, when I would visit friends in Japan, in their homes, that sometimes, hanging on bamboo on a room like a screened in porch, would be dried octopus and squid. When I asked what they did with them, they smiled and said they eat them. They were then hard as rawhide and looked like rawhide.
Your post was most interesting.
When I first came to Portugal, I´ve never eaten octopus in my life until it was introduced to me during one of the meals in my mom in laws house, boiled octopus served with vege like green beans, carrot, potato, egg,all boiled.With olive oil & vinegar to add for dressing. It was very good as meat was tender.
I understand what you mean re: your experience in japan. its true the meat could be tough to eat , ther+s a trick in preparing it.
The dried squid in Phils. we eat a lot.. we fry it and it becomes crispy! and you know what? we eat fried squid for breakfast with fried rice and fried egg and sometimes with tomato salad!
Thanks for dropping by and to your comment A. L.
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