Euros Ate My Dollars

We chose an apartment in Hania with a kitchen, so that we could conserve money by cooking our own meals. And by cooking, I mean using the small hot plate that is provided. We have been doing a better-than-expected job of avoiding the over-priced restaurants so far, but last night we decided to make a rare trip out to eat dessert. We decided to finally try the restaurant known as Ela, which touts both its open-roof dining room, and its inclusion in seemingly every guidebook in publication. All this really means is that Ela paid the piper at each publisher, in order to ensure their inclusion in the latest edition. But this does not prevent them from setting up a sandwich board advertisement in the street to ensure that that every passer-by knows all about their accolades.

We decided to order both baklava and something I can not pronounce that means cheese pies with honey. We confused our server by explaining that we would only be having dessert. Greeks don’t typically do “dessert,” so most sweet offerings are only on the menu to appease the tourists. Often, what they will gladly sell you as dessert seems to be more like dinner with honey on top. This was certainly the case with the cheese pies. What I assumed would be similar to cream cheese was in fact much more like feta with chives. But with honey on top!

We had a very difficult time figuring out how/where/who to pay for our food, so when we realized we would have leftovers, we were reluctant to go down the path of communicating “doggie bag.” Brittany’s solution was to wrap up our leftover baklava in her napkin and stuff it in her purse. (This would have made for less of a spectacle if she hadn’t been shiftily scanning the room left and right while she did so). Nevertheless, it was actually a rather good solution to avoid accidentally purchasing whatever would constitute the direct Greek translation of “doggie bag.” Or, it would have been had a good solution if we hadn’t forgotten about the baklava when we got home. Brittany did remember it today, after only several hours of shopping in the city sun. She is currently in the kitchen trying to clean honey from the inside of her purse.

• 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS