So we had our anniversary dinner tonight. We thought since we're not going to be overseas doing our Turkey and Greece thing, we're gonna go to Greek and Turkish restaurants to make up for it. Originally we had planned to go to Santorini, the restaurant on Oxford St on our Santorini anniversary and Mykonos on Crown on our Mykonos anniversary. But Mykonos on Crown is one of the shittiest restaurants we have ever been to, and around the same time, all these reviews for Greek Restaurants popped up on SMH. One of which, was Greek Islands Taverna at Earlwood. (360 Homer st)
We thought this would be perfect, it'll cover our Rhodes, Santorini and Mykonos Anniversary. So we rocked up tonight only to be greeted at the door by 2 asian waitresses. First thought in my mind was "Oh my god its an asian run greek joint!!". Luckily a quick look around showed that this isn't one of those dodgy joints. So we squeeze into our table, which was unfortunately against the wall meaning once we were seated, we were trapped for the whole night.
We were handed the menus and quickly started arguing about what we were going to order. We finally decided to go with more Mezes and just one main whilst reserving some room for dessert. Now I didn't get many photos because one, I was hungry, and secondly, it was too dark to take any decent photos without blinding half of the people sitting around me.
We started with a generous serving of taramosalata, which is a blended red caviar dip. It was slightly smokey and slightly salty and heaps oh-yummy! I wish I hadn't ordered this to be honest, I couldn't stop eating it and ended up eating a whole breadroll before all the food came out! Which was such a shame because their Spanakaopites (Spinch and cheese pies) were delicious! I was a bit apprehensive when ordering this because of my bad experience with cheese anything in Greece.
But these were completely different. Instead of salty cheese wrapped in oily filo pastry and then deep fried, the "pie" looked like little fried dumplings. The pastry was cripsy and light, and the filling was a perfect balance of spinach and soft creamy cheese without being overly salted. I could eat half a dozen of these things without getting sick.
We also ordered a serve of their BBQ octopus. Ever since the first meal I had in Santorini last year, I've fallen in love with all Greek seafood. I was hoping for a repeat of the gorgeous meal we had but I was quite disappointed. Maybe it was because we weren't actually at Santorini, a stones throw away from a volcano seated on the edge of a cliff, or maybe it was just because the BBQ Octopus was quite dry and burnt. I know they described it as Chargrilled, but I would classify parts of it burnt. They also forgot to give us a wedge of lemon to lighten the dish up. I wish I had ordered their lightly floured and panfried calamari or white bait, maybe next time.
Of course, no greek anniversary dinner will be complete without the compulsory Greek Salad. I never liked greek salads until I actually went to Greece. The problem with most greek salads in Australia is that they use a dry hard fetta cheese that is either overly bland or overly salty. Luckily, the fetta they used were soft and creamy and oh so drool worthy! It was almost as good as the ones we had in Greece. ALMOST. For a moment there I actually thought we were back in Greece. Maybe that was the 1/2L of wine we were consuming.
After stuffing my face with all the meze, our lamb finally came out. After our last trip, one of my favourite lamb dishes is the Greek Lamb Casserole with Kritharaki (Little pasta).
The lamb was served in a mini clay pot. It was a bit dry and less saucy than the one I had at Mykonos, but the lamb was meltingly tender until it was falling off the bone and the pasta was a bit softer than al dente, but I think it was perfect that way. Infact, I liked the pasta much more than the lamb itself and proceeded to consume copious amounts of kritharaki until I was about to explode.
We decided to have a rest before hitting the dessert, but that didn't last long. Not long after our table was cleared, we ordered our mandatory Galaktoboureko, which is basically like a custard filled filo pastry that is drenched in rosewater sugar syrup. I actually haven't made this in ages and it was good to be able to consume it without custard exploding in my face. The pastry was light and not too sweet, and the firm cold custard was nice and refreshing. Of course we washed this down with greek coffee. Double for me.
So its about 10pm by the time we leave the restaurant. Just like last time, we felt it was too early to go home. So we hop into the car and start driving randomly. We ended up following a car for about 10mins without a clue as to where we were going. We somehow ended up at Redfern and started doings lap around the city. Now let me explain our last outing. It was 10pm at night and we were driving to Crows Nest and on the radio, Nutbush started playing. We cranked up the stereo and winded down the window letting the music blare out of the windows. This is when I start having a laughing fit about how most people will be blaring Techno or RnB out of their subwoofers, and we're blaring Nutbush! So what did I do? I made a complilation of the cheesiest 80s music including Nutbush, Walk like an Egyptian, Hey Mickey etc.
So here we were, driving around the city blaring Nutbush out of the car, we decided to do a lap around Leichardt and stop outside Mythos so we can pump Nutbush out of the car. After a good 20mins of driving around making a racket, we headed off to Haberfield for coffee. Neither of us could actually put anything into our mouths without being sick, but somehow, we ended up getting a coffee each and a ricotta canoli to share. We pick at the canoli and slowly sip the coffee wasting time hoping for the hour hand to get to midnight soon. We were both tired and started yawning despite the coffee.
We sit there watching the waiters pack up for the night to pass the time. All of a sudden, I see Moishii's face change and he started going "Oh my god...oh my GOD oh my god!". I slowly turn my head to the right just as a bunch of people were leaving and yelled "HOLY FUCK!" and proceeded to burst out laughing. I laughed til I cried and then laughed til I couldn't breath. Basically there was a woman walking around dressed like a duster. I'm not talking about people with furry jackets. I'm talking about someone talking 20m of the fluffy toilet seat cover material and turning it into a jacket. This woman looked like she could lie on her side and become one of those car wash rollers. She looked like Big Bird turned white!!
This woman was probably a size 10, 12 max. But with her jacket on, she looked like a size 28!! She was seriously 3 times the normal size with that jacket on!!! I couldn't stop laughing. I couldn't HIDE my laughing! Neither of us could stop laughing! After a good 5mins and many tears, we finally calmed down and paid our bill. Stuffing ourselves with that last coffee was worth it for the laughing fit we had. Who the hell walks around dressed like Big Bird dipped into a vat of bleach????? We tried to get a photo, but with all the furniture stacked infront of us, we failed in that mission.......until next time Big Bird.
We thought this would be perfect, it'll cover our Rhodes, Santorini and Mykonos Anniversary. So we rocked up tonight only to be greeted at the door by 2 asian waitresses. First thought in my mind was "Oh my god its an asian run greek joint!!". Luckily a quick look around showed that this isn't one of those dodgy joints. So we squeeze into our table, which was unfortunately against the wall meaning once we were seated, we were trapped for the whole night.
We were handed the menus and quickly started arguing about what we were going to order. We finally decided to go with more Mezes and just one main whilst reserving some room for dessert. Now I didn't get many photos because one, I was hungry, and secondly, it was too dark to take any decent photos without blinding half of the people sitting around me.
We started with a generous serving of taramosalata, which is a blended red caviar dip. It was slightly smokey and slightly salty and heaps oh-yummy! I wish I hadn't ordered this to be honest, I couldn't stop eating it and ended up eating a whole breadroll before all the food came out! Which was such a shame because their Spanakaopites (Spinch and cheese pies) were delicious! I was a bit apprehensive when ordering this because of my bad experience with cheese anything in Greece.
But these were completely different. Instead of salty cheese wrapped in oily filo pastry and then deep fried, the "pie" looked like little fried dumplings. The pastry was cripsy and light, and the filling was a perfect balance of spinach and soft creamy cheese without being overly salted. I could eat half a dozen of these things without getting sick.
We also ordered a serve of their BBQ octopus. Ever since the first meal I had in Santorini last year, I've fallen in love with all Greek seafood. I was hoping for a repeat of the gorgeous meal we had but I was quite disappointed. Maybe it was because we weren't actually at Santorini, a stones throw away from a volcano seated on the edge of a cliff, or maybe it was just because the BBQ Octopus was quite dry and burnt. I know they described it as Chargrilled, but I would classify parts of it burnt. They also forgot to give us a wedge of lemon to lighten the dish up. I wish I had ordered their lightly floured and panfried calamari or white bait, maybe next time.
Of course, no greek anniversary dinner will be complete without the compulsory Greek Salad. I never liked greek salads until I actually went to Greece. The problem with most greek salads in Australia is that they use a dry hard fetta cheese that is either overly bland or overly salty. Luckily, the fetta they used were soft and creamy and oh so drool worthy! It was almost as good as the ones we had in Greece. ALMOST. For a moment there I actually thought we were back in Greece. Maybe that was the 1/2L of wine we were consuming.
After stuffing my face with all the meze, our lamb finally came out. After our last trip, one of my favourite lamb dishes is the Greek Lamb Casserole with Kritharaki (Little pasta).
The lamb was served in a mini clay pot. It was a bit dry and less saucy than the one I had at Mykonos, but the lamb was meltingly tender until it was falling off the bone and the pasta was a bit softer than al dente, but I think it was perfect that way. Infact, I liked the pasta much more than the lamb itself and proceeded to consume copious amounts of kritharaki until I was about to explode.
We decided to have a rest before hitting the dessert, but that didn't last long. Not long after our table was cleared, we ordered our mandatory Galaktoboureko, which is basically like a custard filled filo pastry that is drenched in rosewater sugar syrup. I actually haven't made this in ages and it was good to be able to consume it without custard exploding in my face. The pastry was light and not too sweet, and the firm cold custard was nice and refreshing. Of course we washed this down with greek coffee. Double for me.
So its about 10pm by the time we leave the restaurant. Just like last time, we felt it was too early to go home. So we hop into the car and start driving randomly. We ended up following a car for about 10mins without a clue as to where we were going. We somehow ended up at Redfern and started doings lap around the city. Now let me explain our last outing. It was 10pm at night and we were driving to Crows Nest and on the radio, Nutbush started playing. We cranked up the stereo and winded down the window letting the music blare out of the windows. This is when I start having a laughing fit about how most people will be blaring Techno or RnB out of their subwoofers, and we're blaring Nutbush! So what did I do? I made a complilation of the cheesiest 80s music including Nutbush, Walk like an Egyptian, Hey Mickey etc.
So here we were, driving around the city blaring Nutbush out of the car, we decided to do a lap around Leichardt and stop outside Mythos so we can pump Nutbush out of the car. After a good 20mins of driving around making a racket, we headed off to Haberfield for coffee. Neither of us could actually put anything into our mouths without being sick, but somehow, we ended up getting a coffee each and a ricotta canoli to share. We pick at the canoli and slowly sip the coffee wasting time hoping for the hour hand to get to midnight soon. We were both tired and started yawning despite the coffee.
We sit there watching the waiters pack up for the night to pass the time. All of a sudden, I see Moishii's face change and he started going "Oh my god...oh my GOD oh my god!". I slowly turn my head to the right just as a bunch of people were leaving and yelled "HOLY FUCK!" and proceeded to burst out laughing. I laughed til I cried and then laughed til I couldn't breath. Basically there was a woman walking around dressed like a duster. I'm not talking about people with furry jackets. I'm talking about someone talking 20m of the fluffy toilet seat cover material and turning it into a jacket. This woman looked like she could lie on her side and become one of those car wash rollers. She looked like Big Bird turned white!!
This woman was probably a size 10, 12 max. But with her jacket on, she looked like a size 28!! She was seriously 3 times the normal size with that jacket on!!! I couldn't stop laughing. I couldn't HIDE my laughing! Neither of us could stop laughing! After a good 5mins and many tears, we finally calmed down and paid our bill. Stuffing ourselves with that last coffee was worth it for the laughing fit we had. Who the hell walks around dressed like Big Bird dipped into a vat of bleach????? We tried to get a photo, but with all the furniture stacked infront of us, we failed in that mission.......until next time Big Bird.
