Foooooood, all the foods

This is Sarah!  Today we did a food tour. Our guide was Tiama  and she was fantastic. It was 4 hours and cost 140 euros which is about 162 dollars. We got food/drinks  at 10 different places. Our group consisted of 2 other couples around our age who were very friendly and we had a great time with everyone. 

First up was Koulouri, sesame bread. It is only eaten for breakfast and only when fresh. It's never eaten next day. This is very traditional and there are stands selling this all over. The place we want to is one of the oldest  in the city and supplies a lot of the small vendors. 

On to Bougatsa, which  is a fillo pie. We tried cream, leak, and cheese. We both liked leak pie best. We had previously  tried cheese bougatsu at a different bakery and while both were great the first bakery was a little better. 

We moved on to a honey tasting where we tried 6 different kinds and they were all really unique and so good. The honey man would have us smell the jar and then dipped a toothpick and fed us the honey. He was very excited to talk about honey. The flavors were island honey, Heather, chestnut, plain fir, white/vanilla fir, and lavender. The Chestnut honey had a really bitter aftertaste and is used most for medicinal purposes. The Heather honey had a really thick almost grainy texture that can almost turn black naturally and if it gets hot the texture  will change forever so it is usually kept in the fridge. It is also hard to get and usually small batches. The white/vanilla fir is also very rare as it does not come from pollen but from the bugs that carry the sap. It is also very hard to collect and if it rains during collection time it gets washed away. It is usually 20 euros a kilo or more.  The texture is almost like Carmel and had a very unique flavor. This was  our guides favorite honey. The others were also good but those were the most different from what we are used to. The honey shop is right down the street from us and they also sell a lot of other traditional baked goods. We also got freshly dried dates which were great. 

The cheese shop was next. Sheep's milk is the most common source so most things use that or a combination of sheep and goat. The shop was very busy so i missed some of the names of things but it was all tasty. We had a spoon of creamy sheep cheese, feta - which comes in big barrels, sheep butter-  which the use for the best cookies and was very different. It also melted very quicky to the touch.  We had sheep and goat yogurt which was so thick it was stayed on the spoon when you help it upside down, sheep and goat cheese gouda and cheese made with olive oil - when it gets warm the olive oil  seeps out and naturally preserves the cheese. 

We then walked through  the food market where they sell fresh meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables, as well as spices and nuts. The meat section was very smelly and we went through it pretty quick but it was huge and had a lot of variety. We stopped for traditional  Greek coffee, this place made it in the hot sand and is unfiltered. This was much better then the one we had before and had a earthy flavor. You could get it with or without sugar. I got mine with and Alex got without sugar. 

We then got an assortment  of olives, there were Lemon. Grape, and about 6 other kinds. It was fun to try so many but we couldn't eat too many at once. 

Next up was a place we saw in a lot of tour videos, it is a very old shop and we got a Charcuterie sampler that included feta, Dolma (stuffed leaves)  3 kinds of meat,  one was Buffalo, the red one was cured in 37 different kinds of spices, and I missed what the other one was. Bread and a salad with herbs, tomato. Olive oil,  and a small grain- the name of which eludes me. We also had Grapas which is a liquor made from the grape reminents after making wine. Very strong, I could only handle the one shot but Alex had a few. 

Time for one of the most well known Street foods,  suvlaki. We got pork and they had spicy and non-spicy Alex got spicy and I got non but it was still a bit spicy for me. The pita at this place was super good and crispy with some grill char. The best pita I've had here. The group all agreed it was time for desert so we moved onto Lukumades with honey and cinnamon. These were much closer to the ones by our house in MN and were very fresh but we still both prefer the ones at Ariana's back home. 

Last but not least we got Cakes - although everything is called a pie here. Walnut cake, orange cake, and chocolate cake with mastika ice cream. The ice cream  here also had orchid root and was a much more subtle flavor and we liked it better than the one we got yesterday. Alex and I loved everything but the orange cake was the best. The food tour was through a company called greekin me and we highly  recommend it we had a great time and went to so many places we would habe never found or would have noticed if we did. Some we had already walked past and didn't look twice. We also stayed very close to our hotel and couldn't believe how much was right there. 

We also passed a lot of great graffiti and Tiama told us the story behind one piece that was of this dog who was beloved by the people because every time there were protests he would stand next on the side of the people and bark at the police. He was a stray that everyone took care of and eventually someone gave him a home when he was old but he got sick from all the chemicals inhaled during the protests and passed away. So the mural was done in memory of him. After the good tour we relaxed for a few hours at the hotel and then went out to visit a place our host Alex recommended called little kook. It is a Halloween themed bakery that takes up a street corner  and is amazing. The food wasn't great but it was so cool to look at.