American House Toast @ Piraeus

This is probably one of the oldest restaurants in Passalimani. GH the genuine Piraeot said so. As a fast food place, this might well be the oldest.

It was evidently inspired by American diner and fast food joint. I would not be surprised if it was aimed at the American military visitors.

I don't quite understand who is this American collage graduate, but she indeed is a "cult" icon.

Entering inside the place, you go to the counter to place the order, just as in MacDonald's or at Goody's. If it takes some time to cook, you just take a sheet and relax; a waiter will bring you the food. You pay at the counter and not to the waiter.

On the menu are burgers, sandwiches, spaghetti, grilled meat, salad, all in junk food style.

GH ordered club sandwich.

It does not look appetizing, but GH said it was better than the club that he had eaten at Goody's the day before.

The waiter brings you also bottles of ketchup and mustard. Very good service.

I should have ordered burger, but did not want to eat meat. That was why I ended up ordering "Fish fillet". In the photo, it looked like fish & chips, but it wasn't exactly so.

The fish was obviously frozen pre-prepared breaded haddock. It was served with chips (frozen, but acceptable), lettuce salad, olives, and something white to the left.

I expected this to be tartar sauce, but, to my surprise, it turned out to be melitzanosalata.

This dish was served with bread (left upper corner in the photo) and GH ate it all smearing with melitzanosalata.

With 2 cans of Pepsi (there is not Coca Cola), the bill was about 15 Euro.

The food wasn't particularly attractive, but the place is a Cult. We did not regret to have visited it. We might go back to try the cheese burgers.

AMERICAN HOUSE TOAST
Defteras Merarchias 29
2ας Μεραρχίας 29
Piraeus, 18535
Tel. 210-4296276

Alternative Fast Food Choices for Lenten Fasters

As far as I am aware, serious Lenten fasters are rare among the Greeks. Even so, Greek fastfood shops offer Lenten fastfood for those who want to observe even at fastfood joints (or rather, fastfood joints are trying to be Lenten fasting friendly). We tried some of these Lenten fastfood.

First, my favorite fastfood joint, Grigoris.



Here is Koulouli with mushroom.



Korouli dough was more like pie pastry. Mushrooms were mixed with tomato sauce and reminded me of pizza.

Then, Goody's.



Fried Squid Rings were a failure in my opinion. Squids were so skinny and I thought I was eating a batter fry.



Prawn spaghetti instead was OK.



It is much better to cook at home, but still, as fastfood, I found it acceptable. 1 more week to go until Easter.

From this Sunday, even not so religious Greeks start to fast, to join in the Easter Spirit, more than to share the suffering of Christ. Agonas continues...

Peinirli @ Grigoris

On the other day I ate a Peinirli at Grigoris (Greek fast food chain).



Peinirli might not be as famous as Tyropita or Spanakopita, but is a very popular snacking item in Greece and you can find it almost any pie & coffee shops. It is a boat-shaped piece of bread (dough is similar to that of pizza) baked with plenty of cheese and either ham or bacon.

Not being a big fan of pie pastry, I buy peinirli more often than not. As you can imagine for such a simple food, how good it is depends on the quality of the ingredients, especially of cheese. To be honest, I didn't like Grigoris's peinirli, because it tasted something other than cheese and ham, something like mayonnaise. (I liked much better 'special croissant' of Grigoris - cheese and ham baked in croissant dough).

What I has been wondering about Peinirli is that, regardless of rather obvious Turkish etymology, why the same food in Turkey is called 'Pide' rather than Peinir something.

The name Peinirli seems to have its origin in Peynir - Turkish word for cheese, which originates in Persian word for cheese Panir that is very familiar to us as an Indian white cheese.

Why the Turkish cheese pide came to known as Peinirli in Greek remained as a mystery. My hypothesis is that, as pide can be cheese pide or meat pide and the Turks used to call it 'cheese pide', the Greeks dropped 'pide' part and started to call it just 'cheese'.

Does anybody have an answer? :)

Simply Burgers @ Sygrou Avenue

Visited a Simply Burgers joint on Syngrou Avenue last Saturday, because a couple who was with us said it was very good and ate frequently at its joints.

I don't have photo of the shop, so I took a picture of the menu that I found under the door of our flat.

It is half-self service style and you need to go to counter to place the order, while water and food are brought to tables by service staff.

Hubby ordered The Godfather (€ 8.35), as was recommended by the couple.



It is a hamburger with grilled bacon, double cheese and sautéed mushrooms. Hubby said he liked it, but I didn't. I ate the meat and found it totally tasteless. MacDonald's beef patty has more beefy flavour, in my opinion. But here tastelessness of the beef is covered up by Simply Burger Sauce (don't ask me what it was), greasy bacon and melted cheese. Side of fried potato had flavour-enhancer flavour of crisps; I like it with crisps, but not with chips.

The my order, however, wasn't bad. Chicken quesadilla (€5.95).



Grilled Arabic pita (according to the menu, but should it be tortilla?) sandwich with cheese and chicken.



Pita was crispy and cheese was gooey. It is not a gourmet food, but a nice fastfood.

One of the guys who was with us ordered Caesar's salad and let me taste it. Again, I found it tasteless; how they managed to deprive iceberg lettuce of taste was beyond me.

In next days, I asked 3 of my friends if they like Simply Burgers. They all responded that they prefer Macdonald's or Goody's for different reasons.

I won't go back to Simply Burgers if I can choose, but if I should, I will stick to quesadillas.



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Related Link
Restaurants in Athens

i CAN has cheezburger!

Today's lunch: a cheeseburger and a diet coke at Macdonald's, Syntagma Square.



Although I don't hit fastfood chains in principle, I have to admit a certain weakness toward Macdonal's cheeseburger. I have no idea if it is better or worse than other cheeseburgers, having so little experience in burgers in general, but it does hit the spot for me. It might have something to do with the fact that, in my university days, it was one of the cheapest food I could find in town and ate it from time to time when I did not have time to go home to eat.

The Syntagma cheeseburger tasted butter than what I remember and I enjoyed every mouthful. It was a magical cheeseburger moment.


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Then I got 040 bus from Syntagma to go home. This weekend there is a disruption of Ilektriko line between Kallithea and Nea Ionia and it is almost unusable for me.

In the bus an Egyptian guy sat down next to me and he started to talk to me because I am beautiful and he wanted to marry a Japanese woman. Usual stuff. Well, not because I am beautiful. It is because that is a sort of things they say.

He said he was a farmacist in Egypt, but just a casual worker in Greece. He has been living in Greece for 19 years and is hoping to get a Greek citizenship.

I feel for these fully capable people not being to able to find adequate job in their own country and have to do lower grade job abroad. When somebody is born in rich country, he/she find a job even with a modest effort and capacity, while someone is born in poor country, he/she cannot make living even making more efforts and having more capacity. We all know life isn't fair, but still the thought is depressing.