Lunch @ Agrotera

Today was probably the first summer day of 2011; it was really hot and sunny. As it has been pretty chilly until now - unusually for May -, the summery temperature was reassuring.

I had to go to the office this morning, but in the afternoon met up with Hubby for a walk and lunch in central Athens.

Here is National Garden (Ethnikos Kypos).



We headed for the place we had visited once and wanted to go back since: Agrotera.



It faces the running/athletic ground. I wish I could say that it is a nice view, but the truth is that looking at sweaty people while eating is not really pleasant... at least to me. Fortunately, today there was no one in running truck, maybe because it was too hot and sunny for running.



The menu consists in refined version of traditional Greek + sandwich and pasta. Some of the items contains the toponym "Karditsa"; the chef should be from this area.

We ordered 1 salad, 1 appetizer and 1 main to share. The restaurants in Greece usually don't mind dish-sharing and it is good, because for us the portion is usually so large and it is difficult to finish one plate each.

Olives and tsikoudia were on the house.



Marinated salad with cheese saganaki. I don't remember the details of menu description. The salad leaves, sun-dried tomato and grilled flat mushroom were tossed with sweet & sour dressing.

The yellow cheese was fried with sesami crust and served with warm pita bread. It was milky and sweet cheese.



I liked it quite a bit. It would have been a perfect lunch for me.



Hubby wanted to eat Country style sausage with potatoes from Starter (Orektika) section. I think it was good, but I am not a fun of Greek sausage and cannot say I liked it. Potatoes were nice.



For the main, Veal in tomato sauce with twisted pasta. It was served with grated yellow hard cheese (graviera, if I remember well).



The pasta was very similar to "trofie" pasta of Liguria. I have never eaten it in Greece, although have seen it in supermarket. Not the sort of thing I want to eat everyday, but it was a nice variation.

The meat was soft & sweet but not meltingly soft. Good quality.

With a bottle of beer (4.50 Euro - which, however, should have been 3.50 Euro according to the menu catalogue), the bill was about 35 Euro. For the quality of the food, the price looked very good.

I definitely want to go back to try other dishes.

Only thing I did not like was that it was very hot inside and somewhat smokey because of the cigarettes. They should have opented the window or have used air-conditioning.

AGROTERA
6 Vassilissis Olgas Avenue
117 45 Athens
Tel: +30 210 922 0208