ATHENS
Greece city guide
The Greek kitchen is well known all over the world thanks to the 5.000.000 Greeks who are living abroad and thanks to the millions of tourists who are visiting Greece throughout the year. So here is your chance to taste the Greek kitchen in its original land.
EVERYWHERE you will find a restaurant, a tavern or a souvlaki shop. For those who don't know ,souvlaki is tender pork or lamb chunks threaded on small wooden skewers and is, for the Greeks, the same as fish and chips are for the British or hamburgers for the Americans.
IN Athens you will find any kind of restaurant you wish from Chinese and Indian to Italian, French , German, Thai, Vietnamese, Oriental or Mexican.
FINALLY you could just drop in to a fast food place and get a burger with chips or a Greek cheese pie (tyropita) or spinach pie .The modern rhythm of life has turned many Greeks to fast food outlets and snacks so don't be surprised by the numerous couriers on bikes delivering pizzas and grilled chickens.
TAKE AWAY and fast food is now part of modern Greek life but there is no Greek that will prefer the new fashion of junk food rather than the traditional food that their mothers cooked.
FOOD such as mousaka, dolmadakia (stuffed vine leaves with rice covered with egg and lemon sauce), keftedes (meat balls) and many other traditional dishes of the Greek kitchen. We Greeks eat a lot of pasta, sometimes more then the Italians!! But you will also find a lot of vegeterian food at the Greek table. There is always fresh seasonal salads of tomatoes, cucumbers, green salad flavored with dill, cabbage salad, radishes and spring onions.
THE typical Greek food cooked at a Greek house includes various kinds of pasta with different sauces, spring greens cooked and seasoned with olive oil and lemon juice, which goes with chips, meat balls or fried fish.