today we're in Athens, Greece
we're here to eat and we're going to be zipping all
around town to show you the best food Athens has to offer
Athens's food culture is
vibrant, delicious and steeped in history this is our third video from Athens and
we're here to hunt down the best local food watch out for mouth-watering street
food, heritage recipes and traditional Greek food in this four-part series
we'll show you the city's tastiest food from hole-in-the-wall restaurants to
delicious street food you don't want to miss this series get ready for some
mouth-watering food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're
Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry let's eat
Greek cuisine is mouth-watering there's just no other word to describe
it and so today we're going to be hopping all around town to find the best
local food to show you we're at our first stop and we are eating one of the
most delicious things you could possibly eat when you're in Athens and that's a
souvlaki pita
"we are very traditional place with no potatoes no gyros those things yea"
souvlaki pita is the king of Greek street food you'll see it
all over Athens every street corner has a restaurant selling this dish but why
are we at this particular restaurant or stall? It's because it's one of the best
in Athens if not the best it's got a really long history it's been around
since 1950 and they serve up their souvlaki pita the traditional way
so I've got it in my hot little hand let me talk you through it so you've got
this really thick fluffy pita and inside we ordered the pork souvlaki so
souvlaki is meat which is cooked on a skewer so you've got the chunks of
pork souvlaki there there's big juicy bits of tomato there's yogurt there's parsley
some red onions sliced really finely a little bit of chilli salt and pepper so
really really simple let's get into it
mmm holy moly that was the perfect first
bite the pork has a lot of texture a lot of flavour it's very smoky and that
pita very smoky as well and very fluffy a
little bit chewy so it's got a great texture, the zing of those freshly sliced
onions just add a real delicious hit
the tomatoes are so juicy
wow it's brilliant it's simple and it's packed
full of flavour and Kostas is using his grandfather's recipe so his grandfather
opened this little what was then a just a little window selling this dish back in
1950 and 65 years later he's still serving up that same recipe that's a
heritage dish right there
now that was a great way of starting this day of eating so souvlaki pita
here super common but what you'll normally find is a bit of a different
take on it they put potato chips in there so french fries inside the wrap
that one's really really traditional so super natural super clean flavors it was
truly amazing and I love this setup it was the most tidy together setup I've ever
seen for a street food seller really well done he was just super efficient
efficient yeah loved it that was a brilliant start, next stop
our next stop is the last surviving dairy bar in Athens so back in the 1960s
there used to be over 1500 of these traditional dairy bars where people
would stop by to grab their milk their yogurt
have a coffee have some dessert but that tradition is dying out and this place is
the last man standing we're here to eat some Greek yogurt
now anything dairy gets me incredibly excited so when we booked tickets to
Greece the first thing on my mind was Greek yogurt and check this out this is
insane so this is some incredible looking Greek yogurt covered in honey
and some really fresh looking walnuts all just broken up on top of there and we've
also ordered some some well cream off the top really this is what's skimmed
off the top and it's covered in that same honey again but I'm gonna start
with the Greek yogurt and those those walnuts and honey mixture
ohhh look how creamy it looks
get some walnuts
missing the walnuts ohhhhh
oh my god
ohhhhh
I've just gone to yogurt heaven that
is incredible it is the creamiest yogurt I've ever had
and it's really nice and sour so any sweetness it's got is from the from the
honey not from the yoghurt itself so I don't think the yogurt would be
sweetened at all let's get some more
it's really sour and tangy so I believe
this is a sheep's milk yogurt so it's got that extra tanginess from that
like nothing else I've ever eaten
Sheena spoke before about how there used
to be thousands of these types of shops I don't know how there isn't still
thousands because that is incredible I'd be eating that every day if I lived here
ohhhh the flavor it's unreal
let's try this this cream on top once again
with that honey all over it look at that oozy honey it's a nice runny
honey
Wow
flavour is completely different there that's got a real creamy texture
so it tastes like whipped cream actually the texture's like a whipped cream that's
not been taken all the way and that is unreal as well I'm gonna go again look
at the honey just glistening on it
oh man it's like eating a glass of cream
the most silky smooth cream you've ever tasted and then once again the sweetness
is just coming from the honey unbelievable, the yogurt I think is not
gonna last long that's gonna get it's very rich so it's gonna be great
for us to share that it's gonna be hard to finish that by yourself but the
yogurt is so light and so fresh and tangy it's going down a treat
Athens is a city just full of history and culture so so far the food today has
been had a great bit of history behind it one place was opened in 1950
the other place opened in 1931 next up we're going for loukoumades at a place
that's been around for almost a hundred years and then you've got this sort of
history so right behind me is a cemetary and that was first created in the ninth
century BC and was used until the third century AD incredible history in this
place it's an amazing city
and the food culture here is pretty incredible so
there is a history and a food culture dating back three and a half to four
thousand years it's unreal numbers
we've ordered up our loukoumades and these are as fresh as fresh gets they
came straight out of the hot oil so check them out they're basically a Greek
doughnut I suppose so deep fried dough covered in a honey syrup there's a lot
of crushed walnuts over the top and also cinnamon and the smell
ohhhh it's heavenly
I've just gotta dive right in, wow okay so
the loukoumades is really soft it's not dense and doughy at all it's very crispy
it seems
amazing they are light as air they shatter when you bite into them because
they've got this really crispy outer and the inside is really pillowy
the honey syrup is really sweet and there's a beautiful fragrance from that cinnamon
the walnuts also add a really great crunch
I can't get over how light and fluffy they are they are a great texture
and loukoumades are a really popular Greek sweet treat and I can totally see why
this place has been churning loukoumades out since 1923 so it's a bit of an
institution
we had a walk around the old town of Plaka and up near the Acropolis to work
up an appetite for our next spot we're off to eat a meze feast now meze is
made up of small dishes really savoury small dishes they can be hot
or cold and you snack on them over drinks we ate here
the other day and it was amazing
this is a really traditional place there's a
lot of meze places all around the city especially in the centre you'll find a
lot of very touristy places this place is not touristy at all and the meze is
incredible
most of our meze has arrived and this is one good looking spread
so let me talk you through
what we ordered this here is saganaki which is fried cheese it comes
with some olives and some pickled chilies this here is tzatziki the
famous Greek dip made of strained yogurt and cucumber there's a whole lot
of olive oil chucked over the top there too, marinated anchovies one of my
absolute faves, this here is a behemoth of a Greek salad
so cucumber, red onion, oregano, capsicum tomato and a whole slab of feta, our
fresh calamari has arrived that's deep fried calamari or squid let
me just pop that there ohhh it smells real good
and then we've got a little pitcher of wine
which I'm just gonna pour look at that and then some freshly toasted bread to go with
it all and I absolutely love this style of eating, you just pick away
slowly, have some drinks it's a really social way of eating
let's get into the
time critical food first so the saganaki I'm gonna get that lemon juice all over
it and you don't want it to cool down otherwise it will turn a little bit
squeaky so I'm just gonna get this bit right here
oh yeah fried cheese I mean no word can explain
how good it is right, it's just very lightly floured, there's a whole range of
different types of cheeses for saganaki I'm not really too sure what that is
but it's very salty very pungent and it goes perfectly with these pickled chilies
not overly spicy but very very vinegary and tangy they sort of cut through the
the saltiness of the cheese but now the other dish that's gonna cool down really
quick the calamari but first of all how juicy are the lemons? We've got
this lemon tree at our Airbnb and we've been grabbing lemons off of that and they
are just full of juice and so so tangy oh they're out of this world all right
let's get this lovely bit here
perfectly fried the squid is still super tender that flouring on the outside the
batter is really crisp and crunchy and it's well seasoned so it's got a lot of
flavour mmmm
this is a truly spectacular way to eat food I love that the dishes are
quite small so you can get a massive spread they're all very affordable as
well so you don't feel like you know you're restricted in just getting a big
spread of different things and that's why we've got this brilliant makeup with
the salad and the fish dishes and the dip and the cheese we're really able to
sort of go to town let's get some of this tzatziki
oh wow
oh it's super creamy it's got a
really strong parsley taste and that olive oil on the top it's really coming
through strong it's actually oddly a little bit of a chilli taste but I think
that might be coming from the olive oil so it might be quite a spicy olive oil
so has a real zing to it
definitely one of the more interesting prepared dishes
on the table for me are these anchovies so they're pickled
in vinegar but they're pickled with chilli and parsley you can see that all
over them and they've been drenched in olive oil
and so that pickling gives them a beautiful tangy flavour I absolutely love
these little guys anchovies sort of any form are good they're just an amazing
wee fish and this particular way it works really well so these are
these aren't hot so these can just sit and you just pick away at them really
really good and something I'm just really getting a flavour for in my mouth
is that tzat, tzatziki that I had before the spiciness is not from
the olive oil it's garlic I'm getting a huge garlic hit now
anchovies are incredible
let's assemble the ultimate mouthful of Greek salad all
right I just want cucumber, red onion, feta
also a huge chunk of this tomato
Wow again it's the produce that's the hero so you can really taste the sunshine
almost in those tomatoes, the feta is very very creamy, the onions very bright
and vivid and as is the cucumber like it's very simply dressed it's literally
olive oil and then the dried oregano over it but that's all it needs because the produce is of
such good quality this place is awesome it's just packed full of locals it's
just a lot of old guys sitting here having a beer, snacking on some small
plates this is exactly the type of eating that Thomas and I love to do when we're
travelling