One Saturday Afternoon in Ampelokipoi

Yesterday afternoon, around 15 o'clock, GH and I visited Ampelokipoi.

Actually, I wanted to go to Exarchia, but GH strongly opposed. He says that there are so many drug addicts on the streets there that he does not feel comfortable. It is true that, when we went there once maybe 2 years ago, we saw a couple of guys injecting something in the vein in the plain day light, but I did not feel particularly unsafe.

Anyway, so we had to go to somewhere else and ended up in Ampelokipoi.

It was very cold day and it was not pleasant to walk around, so we stopped at a new wave souvlaki shop ("souvlakerie") called Boutique Souvlaki.

The heater was on, but it was still very cold inside and I could not take my jacket off. Not very pleasant.

The menu was of usual psistaria, except that there was no gyro, if I remember well. Price is same both for eat in and take away.

In general, the price is about 10% higher than traditional souvlaki shops (psistaries) and a bottle of water (1 Euro) is obligatory order. Still it is cheaper than at restaurants/ tavernes. A small bottle of beer was 1.60 or 1.70 Euro. They had also one kind of non-bottled beer (maybe Alfa, but I am not totally sure).

There are 5 or 6 kinds of salads. We ordered grilled vegetables & haloumi cheese (6 Euro).

Nicely presented and tasty.

And we ordered a main dish to share: pork steak (7.50 Euro).

The meat had right amount of fat and pleasant, if it was undersalted (but there were salt and pepper on the table). The size of meat I believe was rather small by Greek standard.

One important observation is that there is no pita on the plate. In traditional psistaries, the portions (merides) come with potatoes AND pites. If you want pita, you need to order separately.

The total bill came to 16.20 Euro. We did not order much. If we ordered right amount of food for 2 people, we would have spent surely above 20 Euros. Cheaper than at tavernes, but slightly more expensive than at traditional psistaries. Not that we regretted to have been here, but it was not a sort of place we would like to go back.

Boutique Kalamaki
Karystou 3, Ampelokipoi, Athens
Καρύστου 3 , Αμπελόκηποι, Αθήνα
Tel 210-699 5840
http://www.boutique-kalamaki.gr/

Afterwards, we stopped at a cafe / bar called Zen for a coffee.

We ordered also an apple pie, 4.90 Euro.

It was quite average and did not taste fresh. Did not worth for the price we paid.

Before we leave, we bought some bread and cakes from a bakery called Spyrou. Here are cherry pies for 2 Euro per piece.

The crust was crumbly and it contained right amount of cherry filling. I wish I could get such a nice cherry pie in my neighbourhood. The shop is close to Sklavenitis supermarket of Plateia Kanellopoulou (and there seems to be 2 more shops in Ampelokipoi).