Athens, Greece
Caffe Freddo
Not all freddos are created equal.
Six d.o.g.s., Avramiotou 6-8, Psirri
After visiting Delphi, the pressure was off. We had been to the once spiritual center of all of Greece, loaded with ruins, mythology, and a nicely air-conditioned museum. Our last full day in Athens was about finding good food, which has been harder to find than we’d like.
The strange calculus of doing your own research, coming to a dead-end in the Internet (it’s possible), and then resorting to TripAdvisor is a defeating experience. For one, you discover that travel writers and food writers alike are lazy when it comes to Athens. Andrew Zimmern (yeah, that guy who only likes to eat exhaustingly weird food, like bugs) gave us a so-so recommendation for gyros in the center of a tourist trap. Anthony Bourdain gave us an off-beat recommendation for a Greek yogurt bar that seemed too cute for the likes of him (we were so skeptical, we didn’t go).
Boo, hiss TripAdvisor! But, here we are. The thing about TripAdvisor is that it actually capitalizes on the foodpics we all gawk at. There are 100s of pictures of the same “Greek Salad”, the same souvlaki that when you see that something in highly-rated, you can discern if the rating seems fair. This cross-referencing and calibrated judgment is absolutely exhausting and it’s because of this, we’ve sort of been throwing in the towel, here in Athens.
But, it was our last full day in Athens, so we couldn’t give up so easily. We went back to Stani for mind-blowing Greek yogurt and coffee. And planned to get lunch at Karamandilika, the 4th highest-rated restaurant in the city, that seemed to be a deli and a restaurant. It didn’t open until 12PM, so we wandered around the neighborhood, picking up souvenirs - mostly of evil eye charms and mastic soap (mastic soap!). It’s either the best or worst sign that everyone in the restaurant was a selfie-stick-wielding Asian person. 😏 Thankfully, we were not left disappointed: pickled artichokes, pickled okra, “Greek Salad,” “Sachanaki Karamanlidiko,” with pastirma from the Karamanlides People and sudjuk from the Constantinople Tradition, with eggs and tomato. This sachanaki appeared to be a lot like the menemen dish we had in Istanbul, so it was pretty funny to see that it was prepared in the “Constantinople Tradition” - no one here says “Turkish.” Except for Bryan, who ordered “Turkish Coffee” at breakfast. LOL - 😂
To the Acropolis! And the Parthenon at the Acropolis! Until today, this place only existed in our imagination. When we learned about Greek mythology, it’s here that the Gods poked their heads out of the sky to confer with humans. But, the humans here today - no Plato, no Socrates - are funny: Instagram Boyfriends waiting patiently for their girlfriends to fluff themselves for the perfect prof’ pic, gearheads with tripods attempting to engineer the perfect shot for their hobby, hoards of American and Chinese tour groups slipping on the slick pathways, already worn from millions and billions of steps.
We make fun, but we really shouldn’t. We only know so much about the Acropolis because in the 19th century, the humans then also took selfies - etchings and drawings of the sculptures and friezes on the Parthenon, the “explorers and conservationists” preserving the site and looting it, instead. The difference is that today, there isn’t much “there.” The gods probably look down and see little difference in us humans and that’s pretty cool.
Rosé
ALL DAY
Karamandilika, Sokrates 1 | Sokrates & Evripides 52, Psirri
