Mikri Venetia @ Koukaki

Visited this modern taverna on the 1st May, a national holiday in Greece. Apart from its status as Labor day, it is also a pagan-ish festive day to celebrate the spring. People go out and collect flowers to make wreath. Even if they do not make wreath, people go out to feel the spring, as far as the weather is fine. And this 1 May was very fine indeed and there are lots of people everywhere.

On such a day, the problem is to find a place to eat. As we were walking around Acropolis, I dragged GH up to Fix where a restaurant called Mikri Venetia had caught my attention.

Being an "in" place, it was full, but luckily we could still find a couple of free tables inside, while tables outside were all taken. At this point I would like to mention that Mikri Venetia on a pedestrian street (a rare thing in Athens) and many tables were al fresco in fine weather.

The indoor space is very simple and with little decoration. But this little decoration makes a good presence and well creates the ambiance.

There is nothing that reminded Mikri Venetia of Mykonos. There were some odd masks that are like the ones used in the Carnival of Venetia, but allusion to Venice stops there. I believe that I heard that the owner was called Venetia and maybe she is the origin of the name.

The overwhelming majority of the clientele were young , younger than 40 I would say. It is not limited to this restaurant, but many who were hanging around the bars and restaurants in the area were young.

The menu is neither long nor short and there is an adequate number of items for the restaurant of this size. The type of the food is modern Greek, I guess.

We ordered 5 items, because the portion size did not look so big.

Here are green salad (5.50 Euro) and kaltsounia (4.50 Euro). The salad was lettuce based mix and grated mizithra on top. The kaltsounia were described as Cretan small pies filled with white cheese and green. I liked the salad, but not so much the pies which were oily and boring.

This is something I had to order when I saw it on Today's dishes: Reggosalata (4.50 Euro). It is a paste made from smoked fish called regga and, although I have heard about it many times, I have never actually seen it or eaten it. I think it was made from, apart from the fish, bread and olive oil. As I generally like cured fish, I liked it. I wish I had boiled potatoes to eat with.

And "patatoules" (2.80 Euro). When you say patatoules in Greece, it normally refers to fried potatoes. In Mikri Venetia, they were boiled small potatoes tossed in olive oil and seasoned with sea salt. They do not look much, but were quite delicious, potatoes being very sweet and flavorsome. Cheap as well.

After a very long break, our main dish arrived: chicken fillet in cheese sauce served with mashed potatoes (7.80 Euro). They should have season the chicken better before cooking it, but overall it was hearty and tasty dish.

At the end they offered us a dessert (this is for 4 persons, as 2 other friends had arrived by then).

With a glass of beer, the bill came to slightly less than 30 Euro.

The speed and organization of the service was quite terrible, but I discount it, because, frankly, it was expected; wherever we went, it would have been the same. More importantly I was not impressed by the food. It was good, but not to the degree that I want to try it again and again. It worth trying it, though; you might well like it.

Mikri Venetia - Μικρή Βενετία
G. Olympiou 15, Koukaki, Athens
Πεζόδρομος Γ. Ολυμπίου 15, Κουκάκι, Αθήνα
Tel. 213 0259158 & 6948044254
http://www.mikrivenetia.gr/

Trapezaria At Last

I have been wanted to visit this place for a while and finally here we are, to celebrate my birthday. Actually some days later than that, but it was the reason anyway.

This means that I expected that it should be somehow above our usual budget. Guess how much we spent for 2 starters, 2 main courses, 1 dessert, and 2 glasses of wine? You will see the answer at the end of this post (no no, do not scroll down just yet!).

I booked a table for a Sunday afternoon. During the time that we were (about 2 hours from 14:00), only 3 or 4 tables were occupied. So, if you think that Trapezaria is always full and don't like over-crowded restaurants, Sunday afternoon is a good time to visit. I believe that they do not serve Sunday dinner, but their website says that it has started lunch service for weekdays.

I am not sure the name of the location. Is it Makrigianni or Fix? It is somewhere between Acropolis metro station (or Acropolis Museum, if you want) and Fix metro station and the closest archaeological monument is Temple of Olympian Zeus. Do you get me? Ha ha ha. (But I have read somewhere that they are relocating sometime soon; please check the location before you go).

From outside, it looks like a cafeteria or something. At 2 in the afternoon, we were the first to arrive.

The menu is not long, not short. Considering that it is really a small restaurant, however, I see that it needs quite an effort to have that range of things (you can read the menu - not always up-to-date - on their website, if you like).

The bread, dip and olives were obligatory order (1.80 Euro p.p.). All very good, but half the bread went wasted because of the quantity of the food we ordered later). The glass wine starts from 4 Euro.

1st starter was tyropita in kataifi pastry. The cheese wasn't yellow one, but ksynomizithra and it was mixed with siglino and dried fig. Pleasant. In quantity wise, it is way to much for a starter for one person. Best to be shared.

The filling. I might try this at home.

The starter that I wanted was off-the-menu, so this was my 2nd choice. Fried cod youvarlakia (more simply, fried cod & rice balls), served with black mayo and tomato based sauce, and salad (lettuce, green apple, pomegranate etc).

Tasty they were, it was more about the presentation than substance. The red sauce was incredibly good, though.

If you know how much we usually eat, you can imagine how full we were at this stage.

This is GH's main dish, Beef/veal tri-tip and spring rolls of moussakas.

The meat was rich in flavour, but was a bit tough. Spring rolls were also nice, but I am not sure about the combination with beef (i.e. I don't think they enhanced each other's strength).

My main dish was pasta. Black conchillia pasta cooked in scampi sauce with monk fish. You see only pasta in the photo, but actually there was quite a lot of fish morsels. And another think you don't seen in the photo is cheese; it contained a lot of yellow cheese which made this dish quite filling.

GH and I thought this was the best dish of the day. My month waters just by looking at the photo and remember the flavour.

We were dead full, but did manage to finish all the plates. AND I could not not ordering dessert, just because it was a birthday meal.

This is cold soufflé of citrus, served with Bergamot spoon-sweet and mandarin sorbet.

Good. But if I could have shared it in 4 persons, it would have been even better.

Next to our table there was a group of 4 and each one ordered 1 starter, 1 main and 1 dessert and finished most of the dishes, drinking much more wine than we did. I wish I had a better appetite as them.

So the answer to the question: how much did we spend? 58.60 Euro is the answer.

Actually it was less than I expected and can tell you it is quite a good value for money both for the quality and quantity.

This restaurant was as good as I expected. Hope to return soon.

Trapezaria
Theodorou Negri 1, Makrygianni, Athens
Θεοδώρου Νέγρη 1, Μακρυγιάννη, Αθήνα
Tel. 2109213500

Mexican at the Foot of Acropolis

(The photos were taken with i-Phone and are not as good as the usual camera photos. Apologies).

It has been quite a while that I wanted to visit this Mexican restaurant, reputed to be THE ONLY real Mexican in Athens, Rincon Mexicano. And finally the opportunity turned up.

Here it is.

It is situated in Koukaki or Makryanni District of Athens and it takes 5 min walk from Acropolis Metro station.

Knowing that the restaurant is super-small, I booked a table in advance, at 6 o'clock on a Wednesday (they told me that the place is open from 3 o'clock in the afternoon).

When I arrived at 6 o'clock, I learnt it wasn't that necessary. It was totally empty and it continued to be so until around 7:30. Then the tables quickly filled up and it was full-ish at 8. When we left at 8:30, there were people waiting for table.

Based on this experience, my advice would be that if you want to make sure to be able to eat here, either you get there before 7:30 or reserve a table.

The interior is quite humble and the décor does not say much. Besides, although there was no ash tray on the table, there were people who were smoking. Fortunately they were not many, but if there were, it would be a hell, as the space is very small.

The menu is composed of starters, salad, side dishes, cooked to order dishes (or, dishes of the day), and Mexican specialities, about 20 items in total. Not many, but the place being so small, I think it is wise to keep the menu short.

This time we were four, so we picked various dishes randomly and shared among us.

For the drink, we ordered 1 Margarita and a half litre of Sangria. Sangria costs 6 Euro, which I think is not cheap considering that it is just a mixture of wine and juice. In fact, half a litre of wine also costs 6 Euro, which is again expensive by Greek taverna standard.

And the food. Guacamole was from "side dish" section.

Tasted fresh and quite good. 3 Euro.

And another side dish, Nachos, 1.50 Euro.

The white stuff on top is cream cheese and the red is chopped tomatoes.

Here is tacos dorados from "Cooked to Order" or "Dishes or the Day" section.

Corn tortilla was filled with chicken and roasted (or in reverse order?). On top are salad, salsa and cream cheese. Crunchy tortilla had a nice flavour. 5.50 Euro.

Tacos Barbacoa is with soft tortilla instead. Sorry for the lousy photo.

Filling was pork roasted in banana leaf (not that I saw the banana leaf, but it was the description printed on the menu). Served with salad, cream cheese and rice. The meat had a delicate orange taste. 7 Euro.

This is Tamales de Etole from Mexican Specialities section of the menu.

Corn flour dough filled with chicken and cooked in corn leaves. We enjoyed corn flour flavour. 5 Euro.

Chili con Carne came quite liquid.

The quantity of meat was rather disappointing, but the soup had a very distinct chili flavour and all of us agreed this was the best dish of the day. We even ordered the second serving. 5 Euro.

As the portions were small, we added two burritos.

Here are burritos with meat. The brown sauce that looks like sauce is stewed beans.

This costs only 4.30 Euro. Very good value for money.

Here is vegetarian burrito.

I think the filling was the bean stew in the above photo and rice. Different from the meat burrito, this was either baked or fried.

At this point we were moderately satisfied and, seeing people waiting for tables, asked the bill. It was about 12-13 Euro per a head with everything together. Not dead-cheap, but well below you expect to pay in ethnic restaurants in Athens.

One thing that I noticed was that the smallness of the portion. It is all right, as the price is accordingly low. However, in my opinion, the Greeks prefer to see more food on each dish even paying for more money. Visual satisfaction is very important for them. That said, if you want to try different dishes, these Mexican mzedakia are good samplers.

Probably worth mentioning that all four of us liked the food. Definitely worth trying for the sake of food, if not for the environment.

Rincon Mexicano
Dimitrakopoulou 5, Koukaki, Athens, Greece
Δημητρακοπούλου 5 , Κουκάκι
Tel. 211 4063349

ManiMani @ Makrygianni-Acropolis

Visited yesterday ManiMani restaurant near the Acropolis Museum. I think it is well known (or better known) to the foreigners than to the Greeks, because it is well publicized in foreign-language guidebooks.



When we entered the restaurant at 8 o'clock there was only a couple of foreigners was eating. Lighting of half of the restaurant was turned off and it was evident that they were not expecting many guests, even though it was Friday evening. The truth is that the Greeks eat outdoor during the summer and these places which do not have tables outdoor have difficult time. It is no wonder that many restaurants in Athens close the door full 2 months during the summer. The kitchen/hall staff can anyway find summer work (with higher pay, I suppose) in beach side resorts, so it is not a problem even for employees.



Bread with olive oil.



Green salad with chopped dried figs and Katziki Domokou cheese. Katziki Domokou was like something between yogurt and feta in paste form. I ate it with bread, but Hubby did not like it (he does not eat Yogurt generally, if it is not tzatziki).



These are meat filled ravioli deep-fried and served with yogurt. In this photo, it looks to be a big portion, but it isn't. Anyway, these were quite oily and I would not eat more than this much. The meat ravioli reminded us of Chinese dumplings.



Square shaped small pasta (xyropites) with chicken and vegetables and cheese. Hubby liked it, but I did not. It was probably because I don't like this pasta.



With a bottle of beer and a bottle of water, the bill was 37 Euro. Not too expensive, neither cheap. The food was not to my taste and personally I won't go back, while Hubby liked it better. But as a Nouvelle Grecque cuisine restaurant, it is probably not bad. Try once to see if you like it.

Manimani
Falirou 10, Makrygianni-Acropolis Area
Tel. 210-921 8180
http://www.manimani.com.gr/

**********

I passed in front of the new Indian restaurant in Syntagma Area: Indian Kitchen.



It occupies the premises that used to be the buffet restaurant Dion. A curry and a bowl of rice or naan is about 15 Euro.

Indian Kitchen
Apollonos St. 6, Syntagma
Tel. 210 323 7720