athinaeos

For fish I recommend Argentina in Kolymbari, and for meat Leventis in ano Stalos. You can find reviews in the "crete restaurants" review page. For breakfast, try "Iordanis", in the city of Chania, just across from the KTEL bus station. Ask the locals and they will direct you. You can have there the best "bougatsa" in Greece, made from various cheeses, served with or without sugar. An absolute must by any standards. All places are frequented by local people. I wish you a great time.

Melange Biryan (in Greek it is called Briam) - an extremely easy and tasty vegetable dish with Iranian, Turkish and Greek roots, one of my summer favourites. (In Iranian, the word means baked, cooked.) Take the freshest zucchinis and eggplants (they form the foundation of the melange) , slice lots of onions and potatoes, throw in loads of garlic cloves, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper, some diced tomatoes and olive oil, and bake for 45 minutes in 200 degrees celcius. The baking dish before the tomatoes were added. Ready to eat. After you take it out of the oven, season with olive oil and let it rest for a couple of hours before serving.

checken breast rolls filled wih pistacchio nuts and raisins, served with a light sause made with white wine and fresh white grapes

In Athens the best way to recover from alcohol related excesses in the wee hours is to visit the Central Market Tavernas and have a couple of dishes of tripe, or veal knuckles soup! While you enjoy your meal, there are street vendors passing by, fortune tellers seeking to reveal your destiny, musicians playing, beggars begging. If all of the above does not cure you, you cna taste the ultimate drink, "salep" (turkish) or "sahlab" (Arabic), which is produced from an extract of orchid's roots.

In order to put the cost of the avocado into some sort of perspective, could you please tell us what is the average monthly salary and the cost of living in Hanoi? In the realm of recipe minimalism, is it common to eat raw fish, shrimp, squid ... in Vietnam? If yes, could you please elaborate on preparation and serving procedures?

Interesting topic. I think that in one respect we all have moe than we really need, and at the same time we do not have everything we really need. In my case, I find the microwave oven a total waste. It just occupies space. On the other hand, I could do with a nice set of japanese knifes! Do not get me wrong. I still cook, the process does not stop. On the sideline, I was impressed by nakji's statement regarding streetfood in Vietnam. Is it really that good? I have heard from friends and read in Bourdain's travels that Vietnam has one of the best cuisines in Asia, but the quality of streetfood comes as a surprise.

No, they were pure as mother nature created them. To answer FoodMan's question, the octopus is eaten as it comes out of the pot, without anything, not even salt or olive oil. The bouquet of delicate natural flavors would be destroyed otherwise. I would like to express my admiration for all the wonderful dishes that have already been presented in this forum, and suggest that we find a way for "realizing" the experience, by organizing gastronomic meetings in Sicily and other places of interest. Cheers

This thread brings back memories of two visits to the blessed land of Sicilia! I would like to share with you two images, one from the sea and another from the land. Please note that the octopus was boiled for a couple of minutes only, was uncut, and served as it came out of the pot! The aromas of the dish were out of this world, provided you ate it all! The artichokes were sweet and tender, inviting the traveller to relax and enjoy! This dish is the equivalent of five hours in the sauna, jacuzzi, turkish bath, etc etc.... I owe the pleasure of both experiences to the good people of "Picolo Napoli", a trattoria near the docks of Palermo, frequented by locals only.

The rule in Greece when it comes to eating greens (horta) is that you eat anything that grows in your garden or thereabout. I assume therefore that the cook of the shop in Volos cooked the greens that his wife or mother picked earlier that morning. I have tasted many variations of this dish in Crete, with local greens, and they are also sublime, with different greens in each place. Two fo the variations I thnk are worth mentioning, although I do not know the name of the greens in english. One is with "zohos", a green that is relatively bitter and the other is with "stamnagathi", which is a fleshy green.

It is a very simple recipe and easy to prepare. 1.Cut the eggplants in thick slices, place them in a baking dish, sprinkle some olive oil on top and sea salt, and bake in 220 Celsius for about 10 minutes, or until the eggplant is soft. 2. Boil the lentils until they are crunchy. Once you dry them, add some salt and peper. 3. Combine the ingredients building shallow cylinders as in the picture. Bottom layer is eggplant, next lentils, next eggplant, and top layer is lentils. I use some metal cylinder forms that are topless. I add a bit of tomato sauce on top and bake in 220 Celsius for about 20 minutes. 4. The dish is served in room temperature, preferably 6-8 hours after it was baked. 5. You may add olive oil and/or cheese if you want. Enjoy!

This aspect of behavior at the table is - as everything else for that matter - culturally bound. No universal rules apply here, and to try to do so, would mean to miss the particularities of the various cultures. Cutlure of course is not only geography but also the social class, the profession, the food, and other factors. For example, construction workers are bound to eat with their hands. To give another, do you eat crab legs wih nife and fork? In Greece it is accepted that chicken legs, small to medium fish and the fish head, require the use of hands. This applies to ordinary restaurants and tavernas. Not to posh places. As a final comment, I would add that what is important is what you eat, and not whether you use your hands or not. A fellow e-Gulletan commented that scooping the sause on the plate with bread is some times the most important aspect of enjoying a dish. In some instances this requires using your fork. But the essence remains the same.

I am inclined to think that a poem titled "blossoms du mal" will come out of this, and Baudelaire will have nothing to do with it! Cannot wait to read the recipes!

White eggplants from Santorini They are seedless, and very sweet. I use them to prepare a dish I call "Tortiera of white eggplants with lentils"

Lucky You! I would recommend to include 5 days in Campania with the following highlights in your itinerary: Pompei, Ercolano, Amalfi Coast, Paestum, Naples (Archaelogical Museum, Capodimonte Gallery, as many Churches as you can afford to visit). Be very careful if you drive there, it is a bit tricky. A good strategy would be to stay in Naples and use public transport to visit all these places. Even if you have a car, park it and leave it in the garage. The only place I would drive to is Paestum, especially if this is at the end of your Naples stay and you are heading south. As for eating places, I have posted reviews for "Torre del Saracino" and three other restaurants in the forum. Have a great time.

It is summer, and we have a fantastic variety of vegetables and greens to choose from, cook and enjoy. What vegetables and greens do you eat in summertime? And how do you cook them? Or make salads out of them? Anything goes, as long as at least one vegetable is the basic ingredient of the dish. I start with fresh zucchini and their flowers. They are so tender and juicy that I just steam them, sprinkle over a bit of coarse sea salt , some olive oil and a drop of lemon, and serve steaming hot for immediate consumption. P.S. I have learned the hard way that extra care should be taken when cleaning the inside of the flowers!

Thank you jayt90, I will.

What kind of wood are you using? ← I buy the charcoal ready. The suppliers use pinewood most of the time.

Note that it was cooked over a "slow fire". .. A big thick whole fish like the Rofos can easily take 45 minutes over a slow fire, which would be about the same temperature, and turn out toothsome. ← rlibkind answered perfectly, I would just like to add that the grill man in a seafood and fish taverna nurses the fire for many hours by adding charcoal little by little, so that it has enough strength to grill, without drying the sensitive flesh. When the fish is initially put on the grill, the vertival distance from the fire is about 3 inches. This is done for a very short time on both sides, so that the surface becomes crispy and envelopes and protects the flesh. After that, the distance is increased to about 6 inches and it is kept at that during the cooking period. Another important detail is that the fish is not placed directly over the fire, but at an angle from it. This practically increases the distance from the fire. Finally, one should keep in mind that in Greece we use the real thing, ie wood charcoal, that can produce extreme heat when the fire is at its top strength. In my grill at home it usually takes four hours for a fire like this to die naturally.

Message received loud and clear. "Prenotare, caro amico, prenotare!!!"

Thank you, this is a bright idea. As I hate reservations, I usually show up at a place, wave my hands, declare my faith to the eternal values of human kind: olives, wine, and bread, and ask for something to eat. Will this work in "La Pineta" or do I need to reserve? Thanks again.

As I will not be able to visit Gamero Rosso (they are fully booked), I am trying to find a second eating place in the area to visit the same time I visit Pineta. I have been browsing the Guide Rouge and found in the area another restaurant named "Sciacciapensieri", in Cecina. Is it worth a visit? If not, which one would you recommend? Thank you for your help.

For me amuses are equivalent to a little bit of serious tickling before we start the serious business of eating. They have to be small, a bite or so each, look good, and be diverse in taste, like a quick manifesto of the chef's skills, talent, imagination, and ability to make you travel the food lane. Equally important is the aperitivo that adjoins the amuses. Should be suggested by the house, be very fresh, tantalizing the taste buds and at the same time furtive. In my experience good amuses are an important component of the whole experience, and a necessary condition for a good meal only in $$$ upper to top end restaurants. Not so for the other restaurants, where I expect things like house baked bread, and good quality olives to arrive as soon as I get to the table.

Small scorpion fish from the central market of Athens.

Paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, a man without shrimp vices is a dull man. Continuing on the Dodekannese seafood thread, I present below "fouskes", which are called the oysters of the Aegean. I serve them sprinkled with olive oil, on lettuce and sea weed resting on thin toasted baguette slices, after marinating with lemon juice and parsley. The shell is so hard to open that you do not find them in the market. They are sold directly by the fishermen in little bottles with seawater. Only fishermen can get the precious stuff out of the shell!

Yes, and preferably without using fork or other artificial object. You chew slowly, letting the small parcels that are full of aroma "explode" in your mouth and you wash them down with a very discrete white wine, so that it does not overpower the shrimp's flavors and aromas.