Premiera Again @ Kallithea

2 Sundays ago, we went to Premiera in Kallithea. It looks that I did not write about it the last time we paid a visit and this was our second. It is housed in an elegant residence building and the interior is quite nice. This time, however, we sat down in the courtyard; it was a bit hot, but there was some breeze from time to time.

It was totally vacant when we arrived at around 2 o'clock, but started to fill from 3 o'clock on by the people who looked and/or sounded like Russian Greeks (i.e. the Greeks who moved from the former Soviet Union countries and their kids and grand kids).

First come was warm pieces of bread and garlic butter colored by red beet. Good, but you really should be aware that it fills your stomach.

Crepes (which is not the real name) filled with yellow cheese as starter. Very nice but a bit heavy, maybe I should have chosen minced meat or smoked salmon version.

Here is the starter for GH: fried potatoes. Besides, his main course was a pasta dish (as you will see later). Do not ask me why. He said that they were delicious. Lucky for him.

Caesar salad with croutons, grilled chicken and Parmesan cheese. We should have ordered something more Russian, but it seems that the Russians do not have habit of eating raw vegetables. As it was a hot day and I needed fresh veggie, I ordered this and was happy with the result.

My main dish was pork shashlik, which is like an enormous souvlaki. The meant had some fat and sinew, but it was fine for me, as I do not a big fan of clean fillet.

GH got Russian ravioli with ricotta cheese served with butter and sour cream. I think he ordered the same dish when we came here for the first time. He loved it, but had difficulty finishing all, as he has eaten too much already.

But you don't say no to the ice cream at the end in such a hot day (on the house).

The bill was a bit above 30 Euro, which we think is excellent value for money. Very much recommended.

Premiera
Doiranis 29, Kallithea, Athens
Δοϊράνης 29, Καλλιθέα

Tel. 217 716 9500

White Elephant @ Halandri

Visited White Elephant in Halandri.

Now in Athens there are Red Elephant, Pink Elephant and White Elephant and all of them are between Ambelokipi and Halandri. The Red and Pink Elephants are Indian restaurant and White Elephant is Japanese-Chinese, if I understood well the concept.

This is not sort of the restaurants I would get attracted, but it happened that a friend of ours bought a coupon of this place which she could not use in time and gave it to us. It cost 39.90 Euro for a sushi meal for 2.

The location is just by Agia Paraskevi metro station, which actually is in dimos Halandriou.

The premises have garden and a pool. It should be really nice in warmer seasons, but now it is winter and everyone was inside.

There were actually several groups & couples of people there, but we were taken to this corner maybe because we were with a coupon. Later another group with coupon were led here. Although we requested a table for non-smokers, the our actual table was next to (unofficial) smokers' corner and we needed to change tables.

The coupon included 2 glasses of wine (or sake) and 1 bottle of water, so we did not have to order anything to drink.

The 1st starter was prawn tempura and baby spinach salad, which was supposed to cost 16.50 Euro.

Here I have a disclosure: I lived in Japan for 30 years of my life.

And I say that the tempura butter here was wrong. It was too spongy. It was like home-made tempura than something made at restaurants. And, there was no sauce (in Japan, it is normally eaten with dashi dipping-sauce, or with some salt). I would call it a some Asian-fusion buttered prawns, which tasted good, if you don't think it was a tempura.

The other starter was edamame, which is young soybeans. In Japan, it is a favorite beer companion. It was quite good (it is difficult to go wrong with edamame), although I thought they put too much grainy sea salt.

First sushi was salmon and prawn nigiri. Here the rice was wrong; it was not cooked to core. Probably they did not use a good rice-cooker or did not use a right setting. The salmon and prawns were good. Original price is 8.90 Euro for a set of 3 each.

And 2 sorts of maki. 1 was salmon ura-maki with spicy mayo and the other was smoke salmon-maki with avocado. Original price is 9.80 Euro each (not each piece, but each bar).

There the problem with the rice persisted, but it was less noticeable because of the proportion of  fish and avocado was quite large. I'd prefer maki to nigiri here.

To finish was a glass of sorbet for 2. From the start, the waiters kept on saying that we would have lemon sorbet, but what actually arrived was strawberry sorbet. Weird. If they did not have lemon sorbet, they did not have to tell us that they would bring us lemon sorbet (more than once).

And they gave us normal receipt, which shows that the reduction on the coupon was genuine.

All in all, the food was not bad, especially for someone who is not actually Japanese (or Far-East Asians who have frequent contact with Japanese food). The price, however, seemed too high for the food they offer. If you do not mind paying extra for nice environment, it might be fine, but I do. I would rather pay for the food than for the interior decoration.

It is not my sort of restaurants, as I had suspected even before the visit.

And I did not like this statue at the entrance. What do you think?

WHITE ELEPHANT
Ag. Paraskevis 124, Halandri, Athens
Αγ. Παρασκευής 124, Χαλάνδρι, Αθήνα
Tel. 210-6855581

Jaipur Palace Indian @ Alimos

It has been sometime since my last post. No particular reason, except for I did not have much time during the last few weekends. We have been travelling and eating around as usual.

Today I will post about Jaipur Palace in Alimos. We went there with a discount coupon, so ours is not a regular visitor's experience, but I hope it still helps to give people an idea.

The 'original' Jaipur Palace is in Kifissia. Then, when Iskandar in Alimos closed its door, Jaipur took over the exercise, almost without any change in interior and exterior decor. One Indian is good for another other?

Here is the interior. In comparison to some new Indian restaurants in central Athens, it is definitely kitsch. It might be good or bad, depending on your taste. I just did not like the water cups made of metal, because they made water taste metal.

It was a Friday evening. When we arrived at 8 o'clock, it was totally empty. When we left at around 10, two other tables were occupied, but still it was far from lively. The amount of customer traffic might have influenced the freshness of the food, as you read below.

Papadom.

Sauces and pickles for papadom.

These reminded me of my former life in England. I felt nostalgic.

As starter, we chose vegetable samosas.

The filling tasted too much of green peas and little spice. And there was a hint of staleness. I did not like them at all.

Here is one of their tandoor dish. I don't remember the name, but they are morsels of chicken breast, marinated with nuts paste and spices.

Meat was so tender that the texture was almost mashy. Probably not badly executed, but was not what I liked.

From curries, we chose something with lamb. If you think that the portion is tiny, it is an illusion. This sort of Indian metal bowls looks small, but can contain more than you expect.

I did not like this one either. There was no sharpness of fresh spices. I suspected the sauce was cooked a while ago. Same with the meat, which was cooked to death. All in all, it was uninteresting stale stew.

Naans looked right, but they were too tough and dry to be really right. Not bad though.

Pilau rice was probably the most properly cooked thing this evening.

With a bit of drink and water, we paid 30 Euro for the coupon. But if you order without discount, it would have been 50 to 60 Euro. Way too expensive for what they are. Definitely I would stick to Indian restaurants in Athens.

Jaipur Palace
Eleftherias Avenue 6 (end of Amfitheas), Alimos
Λ. Ελευθερίας 6 (Πρώην Αμφιθέας), Άλιμος

Tel. +30 2109812009
Μob +30 6947117451
http://www.jaipur-palace.gr/

Attic Moon @ Syntagma

If someone asks me to pick up only one favourite cuisine, I would probably take "Chinese". The Thai comes close second, but as the Chinese cuisine so full of variety, probably I can find something close to Thai in Chinese cooking anyway.

It is a shame that GH prefers Greek cuisine to any other.

But, sometimes, I manage to convince him to come to eat something else. The excuse this time was that I had found a discount coupon.

The Chinese restaurant, Attic Moon, opened some months ago at the location of Diros restaurant used to be, in Xenofontos Street. It is fairly close to the other Asian restaurants in the area, like Furin Kazan, Dosirak, Koi and East Pearl (the one that moved away from Piraeus).

The interior is simply and nicely decorated. There was a strong smell of food in the dining area; I think they need a stronger ventilator in the kitchen.

The menu consists in Chinese and Thai food, but I do not trust in Thai food served in Chinese restaurant of Athens, so we did not order any Thai dish.

Here is a Tsingtao Beer for GH. I guess it was about 3.50 Euro. We paid 5 Euro for the beer and a bottle of water, but I do not know the details as the receipt for the drink was not issued (I got the receipt for the coupon, though).

Here is chicken satay (3.80 Euro). Satay is a Malay dish, but considering that the Chinese use "Satay sauce" (which can come in a jar) I guess it has been adopted in Chinese cuisine.

In any case, these chicken skewers were different from what I expected. What I expected was marinated and grilled chicken on skewers, served with satay sauce while here the chicken was dusted with fine bread crumbs and deep-fried. The sauce I guessed was 'Satay sauce'.

They were fine as they were, but just not the chicken satay I know. And I wanted them to be served piping hot, not lukewarm as they came.

The Spring rolls were pretty average (2.70 Euro).

This is sweet and sour pork for GH (7.50 Euro). I did not like much the sweet and sour sauce here, because it was as if ready-made. Otherwise fine.

Here is Kung Pao Chicken for me (7.50 Euro). There is plenty of chili and pretty hot. It contained a healthy dose of ginger, which GH passionately dislikes. But what can we do?

Normally the chicken in Kung Pao should be diced and not sliced as this one. And the meat should be cooked in a very strong heat while the chicken here is casually stir-fried.

Accordingly I did not recognize this dish as classical Kung Pao Chicken, but, again, it is still OK as sliced chicken stir-fried with vegetables, peanuts, and chili.

We ordered also two portions of steamed rice (1.50 Euro per one).

I think it was Thai Jasmine rice and quite good.

Maybe this is wrong in the Chinese manner book, but this is how I like to eat casual Chinese food.

We were given 2 fortune cookies at the end.

Message for me was "Someone is speaking well of me". Well, thank you.

All in all, it wasn't bad, but I wasn't satisfied with the cooking skill and method. But it is in Athens and in Syntagma, so I'd live with it.

Attic Moon / 名月楼
Ksenofontos 10-12, Syntagma, 10557, Athens
Ξενοφώντος 10-12, Σύνταγμα, Αθήνα
Tel. +30 210 3227095
http://www.atticmoon.com/

Falafellas & Harvest @ Aiolou Street, Central Athens

This happened in July when we had just started our 2 week vacation. Just to understand that we did not have to go to work, we went to Athens instead around noon. There were not much people in Thiseio. It is refreshing to see something different from our usual.

We looked around shops if there was anything worth buying, as the sale period had just started, but we did not find any.

Then went to Falafellas in Aeolou Street for snacking. Actually it was my main objective to this trip to Athens. It is a small shop which sells falafel wraps and is so popular that there is always a queue. However, when we visited, it was a bit before 1 o'clock and the waiting time was really minimum. I ordered a big wrap for 3.50 Euro with extra fresh chili (without extra charge). There is also a smaller version for 2.50 Euro.

My falafel wrap in making. They put 3 or 4 falafels together with fried aubergines, tomato, lettuce, tahini and yogurt. Because falafels and aurbergines are deepfried, it is quite filling, even though it is vegetarian.

This is my big falafel wrap.

Inside.

I shared this with GH and we both agreed it was quite good. The falafels happened not to be hot and it was a shame. But still, it was an interesting snack which is a bit different.

FALAFELLAS
Aiolou 51, 10551, Athens, Greece
Αιόλου 51, 10551, Αθήνα
Tel. 210 323 9809
http://falafellas.gr/


After that, we went to Harvest for a coffee. It is another shop which is so popular that we do not find space usually. But because it was still 1 o'clock, there were empty tables.

They serve food as well, but this time we settled only for coffee and ryzogalo (rice pudding). This is my cold flat white, i.e. cold milk and espresso. The taste of coffee was really good, similar to the one I had at TAF in Exarchia.

Ryzogalo was also good, but some of the grains were not enough cooked.

Flat white and Cappuccino freddo were both 3.20 Euro and Ryzogalo was 2.50 Euro, cheaper than at high-end cafe in central Athens.

HARVEST COFFEE & WINE
Aiolou 64 (at the corner of Evripidou), 10559, Athens, Greece
Αιόλου 64 & Ευριπίδου, 10559, Αθήνα
Tel. 213 025 2284

Both of the shops were worth the renown and I am glad to have visited them. I would go again if they are not so crowded.

Romanian Restaurant Dorna @ Agios Eleftherios

I have a couple of good Romanian friends. So when I heard that there is a Romanian restaurant in Athens, it came to my mind to organize a meal with them there. Unfortunately something unforeseeable happened and only one friend came, but GH and I managed to explore the world of Romanian cuisine.

This happened last Sunday, lunch time.

The restaurant is on Acharnon road and it takes only a couple of minutes walk from Agios Eleftherios Station of Ilektriko (Metro No. 1). It looks pretty good from outside.

It looks good also inside, but I do not have photos. The restaurant was totally empty all through our meal (about 2 to 5 in the afternoon), even if it was Sunday. Evidently it gets busy only after the music starts at 6 o'clock.

The menu was pretty long, but our Romanian friend already had a pretty good idea what we had to eat and we followed her advice.

At the beginning the owner offered us shots of so-called Romanian plum brandy and white pieces looked like cheese. These white bits were, in fact, pieces of smoked lard. Yellow paste was mustard. These items reminded me that it is pretty cold in winter in Romania.

Our Romanian friend said we should try Romanian wine. So we ordered a bottle of semi-sweet red one. According to the friend, the Romanians drink more semi-sweet (imigriko) than dry wine. Here most of the Romanian wines cost 9.90 Euro per bottle, if I remember well (to be honest, I did not pay much attention, as I am not quite a drinker). I did not particularly like it. The owner told us that they have Romanian beers in the summer (but not now in the winter).

Bread basket contained 2 types of bread, one was usual Greek one and the other was pita like flat bread. According to our Romanian friend, the flat bread is Romanian specialty and we stack to it. It (pita) was served warm and quite good.

As starters, we had "Russian" salad (front) and aubergine salad (rear). The "Russian" salad contained meat (I thought it was chicken, but the friend said it might be beef, so I am not sure). Again according to the friend, the Romanian "Russian" salad should contain loads of green peas, but this one did not. I liked it anyway. On the other hand, the aubergine salad was mayonnaise-y and I was not fond of it, while the friend said it was good. It was a matter of taste, I suppose.

This was picked up by the friend from the starter section, but it was so filling that it should really be a main course. The white stuff is a mixture of Romanian cottage cheese and sour cream and the yellow stuff is corn meal (like Italian polenta). The other Romanian friend of mine later told me that the Romanian people typically eat this as a main course after a soup at home. I liked this cream very much. Maybe the best thing for me among all the dishes we ate there. It was simple, but good.

Here is an assorted plate of Romanian pickles that we ordered instead of salad. I generally like pickles and these were not exception, but for GH who does not like pickles in general, it wasn't exception either.

And main courses. These are Romanian cabbage rolls. Stuffing was minced meat and served with polenta and sour cream. It had a particular sour flavor and I guessed that it was because cabbage was pickled.

This is Romanian style "tigania" (so we were explained by the owner), served with polenta, grated cheese and fried egg. The meat was pork and sausage. Although it was described "tigania", the meat wasn't flash fried, but stewed.

And here is Romanian kebab "mititei", served with fries and mustard.

All the meat main dishes were tasty enough, but I had an impression that the quality of meat was somehow, I don't know how to say, "compromised"? I mean, if I were to cook the same dishes, I would have used better quality meat.

Our Romanian friend insisted that we should try desserts as well, even if we were totally full at this point.

Here is Romanian crepe with jam.

And these are Romanian donuts served with creamed white cheese and jam.

I liked better the crepes.

With a bottle of water, the total bill seemed to come to 50 and a few Euro. I say "seemed" because our Romanian friend snatched the bill and did not want to show it to us. In the end, we managed to hand her in some money, but we do not know what cost how much exactly.

In any case, we exaggerated with orders and I guess one can easily get away with 15 Euro per a head. I would want to go back to try other dishes, especially soups that the Romanian eat a lot.

Dorna
Acharnon 408, Agios Eleutherios, 11143 Athens, Greece
Αχαρνών 408, Αγ. Ελευθέριος 11143, Αθήνα
Tel. (+30) 210 211 1104
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