Category: greek

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Meze Box

It was a Friday in April, in Bristol and I headed off to the Finzel Reach street food market to see what I could get for lunch. A guest food van was there, the Cyprus Kitchen. 

They offered a choice of flatbread wraps and a meze box. In the wraps you could choose between lemon and oregano chicken, halloumi, garlic beef sausage, or aubergine. 

When I got there, they had sold out of aubergine. I did think about a wrap, but liked the idea of the meze box, so I went with that. I had mine with the garlic beef sausage, and lemon and oregano chicken. It came with chips, salad, and various pickles and relishes.

This was a delicious generous meze box and I really enjoyed it. My only comments really are that the sausage was slightly overcooked and the pomegranate seeds were under-ripe. The rest of the box though was excellent. The chicken was moist and tasty. I liked the salads and the fries. The flatbread was a nice addition. Delicious box of food.

I hope that we see The Cyprus Kitchen back at Finzel Reach in the future.

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Time for some homemade Hummus

chick peas
Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay

Having got a food processor for Christmas a few years ago,  I use it quite often to make homemade hummus. I would probably make it more often, but don’t always have the ingredients in the cupboard.

I used this as the recipe for the hummus. It is based on my usual recipe, but as I didn’t have any lemons, so I used a lime instead. I used puréed garlic from a tube, as it was easier and quicker than using

400g can chickpeas, drained
60ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml water
1 teaspoon of purred garlic
1 lime, juiced.
3 spoonfuls of tahini

Drain and rinse the chickpeas in cold running water, and then place in the food processor with the olive oil.

Blitz until you get an almost smooth consistency. Then add the garlic puree, lime juice, tahini and 30ml of water. Blitz again until you have a smooth creamy texture. You can add more water if it is too  thick. Season and then transfer to a bowl.

Served with warm flatbread and chargrilled chicken.

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Slow Greek Lunch

I have had a few meals at The Real Greek and so when I was in the Gloucester Quays looking for a quick lunch.

They have a lunch deal, so I thought I would go with that. I entered the restaurant and waited to be seated…

And waited…

True there was a member of staff behind the bar preparing some desserts, and did say it would be a few minutes.

And I waited…

I sat at the table and looked over the menu. I decided what I was going to have and I waited.

And waited…

Some people were sat on the table next to me and they had their order taken, even though they were sat after me.

And I waited…

Eventually a member of the waiting staff arrived, and I was able to place my order.

It took a while for my food to arrive.

I expected all the food to come at once, but the cold meze arrived first, and later my hot dishes arrived.

I had the santorini fava, taramasalata, and Greek flatbread.

santorini fava, taramasalata, and Greek flatbread

The santorini fava was made from yellow lentils from Santorini, cooked and blended with herbs and spices, topped with a salsa of tomatoes, onions, capers and caper powder. I’ve had this before and enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it again this time.

The taramasalata was a creamy blend with naturally undyed cod roe. As the menu says it’s not meant to be pink! I enjoyed the creamy dip.

The Greek flatbreads were soft and warm and there was plenty of it, which was nice.

The hot meze was spinach tiropitakia with chips.

spinach tiropitakia with chips

The tiropitakia was three filo pastry parcels with creamy leek, spinach and feta filling. As with the calamari I had recently, sometimes I think does a dish need a salad garnish, this one did. The dish was certainly missing something fresh to accompany the filo pastry parcels. I would have chosen a salad instead of the chips, but no salad was on the lunch menu.

The tiropitakia had been deep fried, I was expecting them to be baked. I would like to have seen layers of flaky pastry. As they had been fried, they were a little greasy and crunchy. The creamy leek, spinach and feta filling was nice though. I liked the chips which were nice and crisp.

Overall I did enjoy my lunch, but was slightly annoyed with how slow the service was. The place wasn’t busy and they seemed to have plenty of staff, so it wasn’t clear about why the service was slow.

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Chicken Souvlaki Wrap

I was working in Bristol and headed to the Temple Quay Market. I spent time procrastinating about what to have. It was a Tuesday so there was less stalls than there is on the Thursdays. I did think about Korean fried chicken. I then thought about a Vietnamese rice bowl. In the end I went to The Street Taverna and had a chicken souvlaki wrap.

They had barbecued chicken thighs served in a Greek flat bread, with red onion, yoghurt, and chips.

chicken wrap

The chicken was tasty and tender, the chips were nice and crispy. I also enjoyed the flat bread as well. Not sure if the chips added anything to the wrap.

Having said that though I liked the wrap, I think if I wanted a chicken wrap in the future I would head to Matina at the St Nicholas Market. Though they don’t have chips in their wraps, they have a better range of salads.

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Back this week…

Back this week are the Greek Tzoumagias-Style Sausages from Lidl.

There are seven sausages and in the pack.

During a previous Greek week at Lidl I bought some Tzoumagias-Style Pork Sausages with Leek. I cooked them simply in a warm frying pan until they were browned and hot all the way through. These have a lovely meaty texture and some nice flavours. I have no idea how authentic these are, but I do like them.

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Greek time at the Cranside Kitchen

Having enjoyed my previous meal at the Cranside Kitchen, I went there again for dinner the next night.

I was staying in a hotel in Glasgow close to the SECC where I was attending a conference. I had planned to just eat in the hotel restaurant, but found that the restaurant wasn’t open. Well that wasn’t helpful. I had a look around the area on Google Maps and found that, apart from other hotel restaurants there wasn’t much choice close by. I could have walked up to Argyle Street, but it was dark and cold, and to be honest I didn’t fancy walking back.

When I had looked at the Cranside Kitchen the previous day, from the outside it looked like it was now an Italian place called Romano’s. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Italian, so walked around the area a bit more. In the end I went to Cranside Kitchen. I found out then it was a little more than an Italian place. You scanned the QR code on the table and placed your order online. As well as the Italian menu, there was also Chinese, Thai and Japanese.

On my next visit I found that on that that evening there was a Greek option. Well quite liked the idea of Greek so went with that choice.

I had three dishes, the crispy calamari, chicken souvlaki, and a Greek salad.

The crispy calamari was battered squid rings with a garlic dip. 

As calamari goes it was okay, I have had better (and I have had worse). I do think as I have it quite often, that I find it a good benchmark to compare places.

The chicken souvlaki comprised two skewers of grilled chicken on a rather sad and limp salad. The chicken was quite tasty.

The Greek salad was cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, olives and feta cheese.

The olives hadn’t been stoned, and the feta cheese was rather bland and lacked flavour.

Overall the meal was just okay, nothing special and nothing outstanding. Compared to the previous meal I had at the Cranside Kitchen it was a little disappointing.

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Greek Tzoumagias-Style Sausages

During the recent Greek week at Lidl I bought some Tzoumagias-Style Pork Sausages with Leek.

There are seven sausages and in the pack.

I cooked them simply in a warm frying pan until they were browned and hot all the way through.

These have a lovely meaty texture and some nice flavours. I have no idea how authentic these are, but I do like them.

These were better and much nicer that the sausage I recently had at The Real Greek.




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Not as good as it was

Back in 2018 I made a few visits to The Real Greek in Cabot Circus and had some great food. Of course with lockdown, any early return visit was scuppered.

So recently I was in the Westfield Shopping Centre with my son and we decided, on my recommendation, the branch of The Real Greek they have there.

It was quite a hot day and it was rather warm in the restaurant. We looked over the menu and thought about what to eat. The menu has changed since I ate there four years ago, so some of the things I had enjoyed then, were no longer on the menu.

In the end we went with the fixed price Filoxenia Dinner Menu.

You make one choice from the four options.

For the first option, I went with the Greek flatbread, whilst my son had the crudités.

As for the second option, my son chose the Houmous and I went with the Santorini Fava.

From the hot meze options, I went with the Loukaniko Beef & Pork Sausage Skewer, and my son chose the Fried Kalamari.

For the final option we had chips and the Saffron Rice.

The Santorini Fava was something I haven’t had before, and is yellow lentils from Santorini, cooked and blended with herbs and spices, topped with a salsa of tomatoes, onions, capers and caper powder. 

It was nicely presented  and worked well with the flatbread.

The houmous was a blend of chickpeas, rich in tahini and spiced with cumin, topped with paprika and roasted red peppers. I had a taste and it was really nice. 

For the hot meze, the Kalamari was crisp squid rings served with lemon mayonnaise.

Compared to the grilled kalamari I had in 2018 this was a real disappointment. The previous dish was described as “Our own unique version, using the freshest squid and a sticky Greek honey and paprika marinade.”

The Real Greek describe the grilled kalamari as “Our own unique version, using the freshest squid and a sticky Greek honey and paprika marinade.”

My thoughts back then were:

I think you can tell a lot about a restaurant on how they cook squid. The dish looked interesting and not quite how I imagined. The squid was tender and tasty, the marinade wasn’t overpowering and enhanced the dish.

This time, what we go was, squid rings in a crispy coating. It could have been okay, however the squid hadn’t been cleaned properly before cooking and a couple of pieces still had the inedible membrane attached.

As for my Loukaniko, Beef & Pork Sausage Skewer, this was a traditional Greek sausage from Thrace, chargrilled and served on a bed of Greek Slaw.

Well it was, what it said it was. The sausages was tasty and I enjoyed the slaw.

This was a very different dish to the one I had in July 2018, then you got a lot more sausage.

Loukaniko beef and pork sausage

Overall I was to be honest quite disappointed with the whole experience. I don’t think I will be making a return visit anytime soon.

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Homemade Hummus

hummus

Having got a food processor for Christmas one thing I wanted to try and make was some hummus.

I used this as the recipe for the hummus.

400g can chickpeas, drained
60ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml water
1-2 fat garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 lemon, juiced then ½ zested
3 spoonfuls of tahini

Drain and rinse the chickpeas in cold running water, and then place in the food processor with the olive oil.

Blitz until you get an almost smooth consistency. Then add the garlic, lemon juice, tahini and 30ml of water. Blitz again until you have a smooth creamy texture. You can add more water if it is too  thick. Season and then transfer to a bowl.

I have made some variations. For the coriander hummus I added a handful of chopped coriander and then blitz again. For the red pepper hummus, I chargrilled half a red pepper on the gas hob. I then removed the burnt skin before chopping it up. This was added to the hummus and blitzed in the food processor.

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I do take photographs of my food…

…but I don’t always blog about them, nor do they always go on Instagram!

Usually it’s time, but sometimes it’s because the food wasn’t very good.

Back in July I went to Taka Taka. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hungry and the concept did seem interesting. I do like Greek food and have enjoyed the meals I have had from The Real Greek chain.

I looked at the menu and went with the Mix Meat Meze.

A freshly grilled mix of gyros, pork, lamb, chicken souvlaki, and sausage. Served with fries, pita bread, tzatziki, and authentic Greek Salad.

I went to Queens Square to eat, I opened the box. There were fries, three skewers of meat, sausage, tubs of tzatziki, and Greek Salad, as well as some warm pita bread. I was a little disappointed that there was no mix of gyros, I did consider going back and complaining, but was running out of time, and I was hungry.

It wasn’t very good. The meat was dry and chewy. I think it had been cooked and then stored. There is a (big) difference between freshly grilled kebabs and those that have been done and then stored in a warmer. There wasn’t really enough salad and the lack of gyros, was disappointing.

I haven’t been back!