Yes, definitely. In Greece, I only use the thin stuff for pastries.

I'm so glad you like it! In Greece, gigantes are typically served as one of many mezedes (appetizers or little plates). Here, I serve it for dinner with a nice green salad or with a village salad of fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, a few green peppers, and feta cheese. (And, yes, that's feta and olives in the picture.) Fresh spinach would be a fine salad or cooked as a side dish (sometimes I add spinach or wild greens to the gigantes themselves; that is tasty too). I don't serve it as a side dish to meat (though if I serve it as part of mezedes, I'll often include meatballs as part of the appetizer spread). If you're a bean person, this is delicious pretty much anyway you want to serve it!

Don't be scared - you can always bring a Bundt cake...

Authentic, hmm. In Greece, gyros are made with real meat, not the mystery substance that is sold as gyros in the US. There slices of meat are stacked on a skewer, grilled, and then sliced off. The slices aren't one pieces, like in the US, but are a bunch of little pieces, those being the edges of the meat slices that are nicely grilled. So much better than the scary mishmash sole here.

Yes, I will occasionally put mint in gigantes depending on what other herbs are available. I agree it makes tasty gigantes. But here's my normal recipe: http://medcookingalaska.blogspot.com/...

I agree with phoenikia, it's the filling that makes the spanakopita, although on the filo, I take a middle ground. I definitely don't agree that using store bought filo is the equivalent of using wonder bread.

The problem with filo in the US, at least in Alaska where I am, is that only one type of filo is sold - the super-thin kind that is used only for baklava and pastries in Greece. Although spanakopita made with this filo is wonderful, to my taste, it isn't as good as homemade.

On the other hand, in Greece you can buy various thicknesses of filo, and if you get the thicker kind that is better suited to spanakopita, I think it is every bit as good as homemade.

I agree with you completely - it's a wonderful restaurant. Here's my review; http://www.chowhound.com/topics/461704

If you are looking for a non-touristy island, which it sounds like you are, Chios would be a nice place to go. Another island nearby Chios that you might like is Lesvos. Both these islands will give you more of a genuine island experience than do places like Corfu that have a thriving tourist industry. Of course, if an island isn't a tourist mecca, it may not have the same easy infrastructure for tourists that more visited islands do. But if you're independent, and don't mind renting a car, you can have a very good time on places like Chios and Lesbos. Also, if you are going places where you have family, you'll probably get a warmer welcome and a more genuine experience than if you go someplace where you are a complete stranger.

What time on Easter Sunday do you arrive? In what part of Athens are you staying? How many days will you be in Athens? What is the max you want to spend per person per meal?

I agree, Cafe Avyssinia has great food and would be a great place to visit.

By the way, if you do want to go to Edodi, it is very small and you need to make reservations.

The Marriot Ledra is right by the Syngrou-Fix metro stop, so getting around will be easy.

If you take the metro (or walk) to the Monastiraki metro stop, there is a nearby restaurant called O Thanasis that specializes in kebabs that is always good and very reasonably priced. Also near Monastiraki on Adrianou Street is a restaurant called Kuzina that has modern interpretations of Greek food.

Near Omonia Square is a great lunch place, busy with Greek businessmen, but very down to earth called Athinaikon - it always has good food, and is very traditional.

For an extra special splurge restaurant, Edodi is very near your hotel. They cook a different menu every night depending on what is fresh and you pick from a tray of the raw foods what you want to eat. It is expensive, but if you want wonderfully fresh food prepared with skill and finesse, it's wonderful.

There are many many great restaurants in the Gazi and Psyrri areas, I like walking the streets and picking what strikes my fancy on any given day. For Psyrri, take the metro to Monastriaki. For Gazi, go to the Kerameikos metro stop.

What time of day are you planning on eating and how much do you want to spend?

The kind I buy on the island is called flour for Ζαχαροπλαστικής and another brand is simply called μαλακό αλεύρι. Just be sure you don't buy self-rising flour, unless that is what you are after!

Psaronefri is pork tenderloin, and there are many ways to cook it.

NatS, you must think I'm criticizing your listing of Varoulko as a good place to eat. I'm not at all. Like I said it's an excellent restaurant and our food was delicious, creative, and perfectly-executed. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat. I was only trying to let people know what they should expect in terms of price if they decide to go there.

One more thing, I just noticed the address NatS gave for Varoulko is in Piraeus (the town). It has now moved to central Athens, and is located at 80 Piraeus (Πειραιώς) Street in Kerameikos.

As for "the sorry offerings at the corner taverna or tourist trap," I'll pass up the tourist traps, but happily enjoy meals at a good corner taverna any time. You can get excellent, high-quality food in Athens without having to spend an arm and a leg for dinner.

For special occasions, sure, I'll spend the money at Varoulko or the other high-priced, high-quality Athens restaurants. For everyday, the high-priced spread is not for me. And not just because of the money, although that is certainly a factor. I don't want to eat highly refined, extra-special, multi-course dinners every night.

I think the best place in town is the roof garden at the Grande Bretagne Hotel. It is right at the Syntagma metro stop (blue line), which is in the center of town. If you are there during good weather, you can enjoy a great view of the Acropolis from the outside deck. It is quite a spectacular spread -- pretty much everything you'd want, and well worth the money for a splurge.

Some of my best restaurant finds are by happenstance, strolling through changing neighborhoods, peering through doorways, and scanning posted menus. This is how I recently found my new favorite restaurant in Athens, Logia tis Ploris.

Logia tis Ploris is a fish taverna, on a narrow pedestrian walkway, in a quiet, aging, residential neighborhood one block off busy Peiraios Street. The young owners have tastefully renovated a neoclassical house, and serve food one is more likely to encounter at a table near than sea than in downtown Athens.

The seafood at Logia tis Ploris is, without exception, delicious, impeccably fresh, and skillfully cooked. The preparations are simple and straightforward, and properly allow the high-quality ingredients to shine. The prices are reasonable; we paid 20€ per person for our meals, including wine.

We ate at Logia tis Ploris two nights in a row, and would have gone for a third and a fourth had we more time in Athens. Each meal started with a complementary bowl of Beet and Yogurt Spread, accompanied by tiny glasses of tsipouro and crunchy croutons. Though composed from simple ingredients, the flavor of the spread was complex and addictive.

Both nights we gorged on a variety of appetizers (mezedes), all of which were excellent, including:
--Fava Pantremeni (pureed yellow split peas with capers, tomatoes, and onions)
--Octopus Fritters (minced octopus in batter, deep-fried)
--Grilled Crab (large, meaty crab, cracked and lightly dressed with olive oil)
--Cheese Pies from Milos (small, crunchy pastries, filled with fresh cheese and seasoned with mint)
--Sea Urchin Salad (a bowl of salty-sweet sea urchin roe and their juices, with country bread to spoon it over)
--Fish “Pastourma” (thinly sliced cod, lightly smoked over beech, and seasoned with paprika and salt)
--Shrimp Simiotika (crispy, dry-fried, sweet, baby shrimp to be eaten shells and all)
--Clams “tis Ploris” (three varieties of Greek bivalves – cockles, Venus clams, and razor clams -- cooked with white wine, onions, and dill).

To accompany the food, we ordered seafood-friendly house white wine by the carafe – which turned out to be bottomless. As soon as our carafe was empty, the owner quickly refilled it – at no charge to us, an example of Greek hospitality at its finest.

When we finished eating our mezedes, the owner brought out what appeared to be white after-dinner mints. He poured lemon water over the white tablets, which dramatically expanded into two-inch tall cylinders. We laughed with glee when we discovered the cylinders were lovely lemon-scented towelettes for cleaning our seafood soaked hands.

Logia tis Ploris is near the new Kerameikos metro stop, and within easy walking distance of Plaka, where many visitors to Greece stay during their Athens’ vacations. It is well worth the trip.

I've been recreating some of the recipes we had at Logia tis Ploris.
My recipe for the Beet and Yogurt Spread is here: http://medcookingalaska.blogspot.com/2007/11/seafood-in-heart-of-city-with-recipe.html
My recipe for the Clams "tis Ploris" is here:
http://medcookingalaska.blogspot.com/...

There's a lot of good information in this post, and I agree with most of what you say.

A couple comments on the recommendations, however. Varoulko is an excellent restaurant specializing in seafood, with a terrific view, but it is very pricey. Four of us recently ate there and it was something like 435Euros, including wine. The food is delicious, and we were most happy with our meal and the excellent wine, but there are many places to eat in Athens that aren't so expensive. I'll do a separate post on a new restaurant called Logia tis Ploris, which is two blocks away from Varoulko, and serves excellent seafood. Certainly Logia tis Ploris is less refined than Varoulko, but at 20Euros a person including wine, it is also much more affordable.

Spondi is an upscale French restaurant and it is a fine restaurant. I have no complaints about it. But if you are going to Athens, where there are now so many good restaurants serving Greek food, it would not be my first recommendation for a visitor who has only a short time in the country.

Yiannis Baxevanis is no longer at Kitrino Podilato. He now has his own restaurant called Giorti Baxevanis which is at the end of Iera Odos in Xaidari. Giorti Baxevanis is an excellent restaurant but in a northern suburb of Athens that you can only reach by bus or taxi (supposedly the metro will go there by 2009). I haven't eaten at Kitrino Podilato since he left, so can't say what it's like now.

Good luck. My experience with Greek butchers is that they cut things the way they cut them, and don't like to change, and don't have the cuts you are asking about. I suppose if you are in Athens or Thessaloniki it is possible you can find an upscale butcher who will do specialty cuts for you, but outside the big cities I seriously doubt it. It's better to learn how to cook the cuts available in Greece, or to modify your recipes to suit the cuts available, then to try to get Greek butchers to do something outside the scope of their normal experience. Best of luck!