The Last Third

Time for a group challenge post for the last third of the year! Skipping weeks 40, 41, 45, 47, and 51 because they're also for the AtWCC and week 49 because I already wrote most of that one separately. Not sure if I'm going to get all these posts done before the end of the year, but I'm going to try my best!

Week 36: smashed

My immediate thought when hearing "smashed" was smashed potatoes, probably because A makes them so often (and so well). With A's help, I put together loaded smashed potatoes (based on a recipe from Budget Bytes) topped with cheddar cheese, (vegan) sour cream, bacon bits, and red onions. We don't usually top them with more than garlic and herbs (and they are delicious that way), but it was nice to try something different, especially that tasty melted cheese.

Week 37: honey

I stumbled upon a honey butter biscuit copycat recipe on Let's Dish when doing research for this challenge, and they sounded like a good thing to try since I'd never been to the Texas-based Church's Chicken chain before (and A had never had the biscuits). They apparently sell millions of biscuits a year and have even trademarked the term "Honey-Butter Biscuit" (not sure how since that sounds like a generic description to me, but I'm not a trademark professional). The biscuits were good, although I think I might have cooked them too long since the honey butter browned a bit too much on the bottom, and I personally prefer my drop biscuits not so sticky. Maybe we'll give these another try for the Texas part of the AtWCC.

Week 38: cultured

They announced the week 38 theme far in advance for people who wanted to do things like culture their own yogurt, but that was still far beyond my comfort level for safety reasons, so I figured I would just stick to using a cultured product like yogurt. I went with Molly Yeh's yogurt-marinated chicken skewers which were flavored with ras el hanout and harissa, and skewered with peppers and onions. These came out good, but probably not something I would make regularly at this point considering the marinating time and how long it takes me to skewer things.

Week 39: soaking

I like having overnight oats for breakfast, but they've become a bit of a running joke in our household because I'm always talking about them and rarely making them because I forget to set them up at night. This challenge was the perfect motivation to actually make them, and this bowl was overnight oats with almond butter, oat milk, chia seeds, flaxseeds, cinnamon, maple syrup, and topped with blueberries and blackberries. I really do need to make them more.

Week 43: punny names

"Punny names" is the type of concept challenge that I'm not good at picking recipes for. I spent a long time googling punny foods, punny recipes, and all variations of that, but found very few things that interested me. Eventually, I got attached to the idea of doing pizza for "pizza my heart," but at the end decided on "little pizza my heart," which made more sense because I was making little flatbread pizzas. The pizzas were topped with artichoke pesto sauce, mozzarella, provolone, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses, and a pancetta and mushroom heart. I was actually really happy with the combination flavor-wise, and the hearts, while more difficult to make than I thought they would be, kept their shape thankfully.

Week 44: Greek

The country weeks are usually a no-brainer for doubling up with the AtWCC, but I wasn't in the mood for trying regular spanakopita when this challenge rolled around. I don't know why, but I was really fixated on making it into a Christmas tree. (Note: It was not Christmas or December, not even Halloween yet.) I followed the recipe on Dimitra's Dishes for the spanakopita Christmas tree, and with a little help from A for making the tree "branches," it turned out pretty well. Probably more time-consuming than making regular spanakopita, which I'll likely do next time instead, as fun as this was.

Week 48: leaves

There are lots of things you can do with leaves, but I naturally gravitated toward salad. Now, if I had been doing these in order, you would have known that I made at least three other chicken-based salads in the second half of the year. I can't explain why, but my brain just really wanted salads like this, so I just went with it. This one was very loosely based on a Food52 recipe for a farmhouse chicken salad, and the leaves I ended up using were arugula, parsley, tarragon, chives, and thyme. I also made some tarragon radishes on the side. Good salad, but a ton of work with all those fresh herbs, so this is probably a one-time thing if made exactly like this.

Week 50: rosemary

Last one for this batch! I thought I might end up using this for the AtWCC too, but it was not meant to be. I chose rosemary aloo paratha based on another Food52 recipe, since I'd always wanted to try making paratha and rosemary and potatoes were such a good combination. (I didn't want to make more smashed potatoes since I had just done that for a challenge recently.) Unfortunately, there was something wrong with one of our potatoes and it just would not get soft enough for mashing despite being fork tender when boiled. I should have just used instant mashed potatoes but I was trying to do it the "right" way. That meant that the chunks of potatoes that wouldn't mash broke through the dough, and the whole thing was a mess. I'll try paratha again for the AtWCC, and hopefully it'll come out better next time.

Week 11 - Hard to Pronounce

The hard to pronounce challenge week was a difficult one to decide on. I found myself trying to find some of the most complicated to pronounce dishes I could (something like Herrgottsbescheißerle), and hoping that one of them would be something I would want to make. I just kept finding more and more, so I paused and decided to go for a simpler route - how do you pronounce gyro?

Growing up, my family always pronounced it jai-ro (like gyroscope), and it wasn't until adulthood that I heard it pronounced yee-ro. There are so many pronunciations out there, so it definitely qualified for hard to pronounce week! I followed the chicken gyro recipe on Damn Delicious, subbing store-bought tzatziki for homemade for convenience, and we had some delicious sandwiches. We've made it again since then, since it's a great weeknight/school night meal, as a lot of the work can be done in advance.

The first time we went for the full spread - lettuce, tomato, onion, tzatziki, and wraps (they were out of pita). The second time was a little simpler - just pita, tomatoes, and tzatziki - but still very tasty. This is such an easy and tasty way to make grilled chicken, so we'll probably be seeing it in our rotation more.

Week 31 - Cucumber

The Week 31 challenge was announced as cucumber, and at first, I wasn't sure how that challenge was going to go in our household. Crunchy cucumbers are a bit of a choking hazard for babies, so even though we like eating cucumbers, especially in salads, we hadn't really bought any since we started doing family dinners with B. A was still working from home, so I thought about just making a cucumber onion salad for lunch, one that I hadn't made in over a decade. The other option was tzatziki, the only thing B had ever had with cucumbers before, since the grated cucumber there would be much easier for a beginning eater like B. But did tzatziki spotlight cucumber enough to work for the challenge? I decided that it was good enough for us, and picked out a recipe on Cookie + Kate that looked like a good place to start. 

Cucumber and dill too, but forgot to get a picture with those before I chopped them up

The ingredients for our adapted version of tzatziki were:

- 1 English long seedless cucumber ($1.79)
- 1.5 cups yogurt ($3)
- about 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)
- about 1/3 cup chopped dill ($1.33)
- a couple tsp lemon juice ($0.15)
- a few shakes of garlic powder ($0.05)
- one spoonful of jarred minced garlic ($0.10)
- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

The cost for the tzatziki was about $6.64. It probably would have been about $1 less if we used 365 yogurt instead of Siggi's, but that's what was open at the time. We ate the tzatziki with carrots in a dill butter sauce (using up the rest of the dill), some turkey meatballs, and some Right Rice, so the total for dinner was probably about $12 (hard to calculate some of that stuff), right about average.

The steps for making the tzatziki were:

1. Wash and peel the cucumber.

2. Grate the cucumber on the large holes of a box grater. Put the grated cucumber into a colander sitting on top of a bowl, and let the cucumber drain while doing other prep work.

3. Wash the dill, pull off the fronds, and finely chop. [This step took way longer than planned, because our dill had already started to go bad a day after buying it.]

4. Squeeze out any remaining water from the cucumber. [The original recipe said to squeeze it out over the sink in a towel, but I tried that and our towel broke. So I just squeezed it out in my hands over the colander. I'm sure it wasn't completely dry or as dry as it could have been, but it worked just fine.]

5. In a large bowl, combine the cucumber, dill, yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, minced garlic, and salt. Season to taste.

6. Let tzatziki sit for 5 minutes, taste again, and season if necessary. [I didn't add anything.]

7. Chill tzatziki until ready to eat. [Ours chilled for at least an hour and got even better.]

I really liked this version of tzatziki and would make it again. It was a great accompaniment for the meatballs, rice, and carrots, and also good on its own by the spoonful. A made some tzatziki for our Greek New Year's Eve feast back in 2017 with more garlic and no dill, and while he thought this version was good, he preferred the one he made. As a household, we're huge fans of tzatziki, so I would certainly not be opposed to trying as many versions as possible so we can refine a recipe of our own!

Skala

After sunset, we walked back through Oia with everyone else in search of some dinner. It was still on the earlier side, starting to get more crowded now that the sun had set, but we were able to get a table at Skala overlooking the caldera without too much trouble. We had spotted this restaurant on some of our walks through Oia earlier and were glad to finally get to try it.

The first thing to arrive was the bread, which from the receipt, it looks like they didn't charge us for. We thought that maybe this was the time when we finally realized that we could turn it down, but from other pics, it looks like we ate it. It clearly didn't make too much of an impression on us, and we can't even remember what was in that little sauce cup. (Why didn't we take notes?!)

We started off with some wine from the Sigalas winery located in Oia (€4 a glass, all pricing as of six years ago). We got one glass of Assyrtiko (a dry white wine) and one of the Ean Rosé (their dry rosé wine, which looks kind of red in the photo). We don't remember much about the wines, and we're also not very good at describing wines anyway so there's not much missing from our recap about these.

We started out with the fava, pureed yellow split peas (€6.50), which was topped with some onions, olives, and capers. It was pretty hard to go wrong when ordering fava in Santorini, as it was so good everywhere, and this was no exception. We planned to order it everywhere since this special kind of yellow pea was only really cultivated in that area. So delicious and Skala offered a pretty good portion size too. Since then we've been able to order something similar from other Greek restaurants in the US, but none of them ever compared to the ones we had here in Santorini.

Along with the fava, we got one of our other favorite dips, the melitzanosalata, traditional eggplant salad with garlic, onion, parsley, vinegar, oregano (€4.50). We can get good versions of this at home, but the smoky eggplant and all the fresh vegetables in Santorini just made this even better. This had an ever-present but not overpowering smokiness to it, and the overall texture was rich and creamy.

We also got two main courses. One was baked fresh cod fish with olive oil, fresh tomato and vegetables (potatoes, onion, garlic, parsley) (€14). The fish was flaky and tender, and you could tell it was caught that day. The added vegetables gave it a good balance and freshness as well as being filling because of the potato.

The other was soutzoukakia, cumin flavored meatballs baked with tomato sauce (€10) which was served over a rice pilaf. We love meatballs, perhaps M a little more than A, but we both do love them. These were very tasty. Cumin is a spice we both love, and they added a very unique flavor to the soft meatballs. The tomato sauce was fresh and tasty. Everything we had here just felt fresh and clean because we're guessing that everything was freshly picked relatively close to the time they were cooked.

Our dinner at Skala was quite good, probably better than our taverna lunch, and it cost less than lunch too. Perhaps had we known more about the scorpion fish we might have had a better meal for lunch, but we at least had a really good dinner. We were pretty satisfied with dinner, but unfortunately when we left, we had a bit of a craving for cookie ice cream (well, at least M did) and there was nothing like Milkato to be found in Oia. We settled for a cookie ice cream bar from the little market on the way back to our hotel (which we don't remember too much about). After that, it was back to our hotel to end another great day on our awesome honeymoon.

Skiza

Looking back at our time in Santorini years later, it feels like we didn't really do that much while we were there. Before getting there, we had grand plans of visiting the black sand beach, maybe a red sand beach or a vineyard too. But after riding in the taxi from the port to Oia and not liking the twists and turns of the road thanks to our driver, we decided to just relax and take it easy and spend most of our time in Oia. We also realized that we were just really, really, really tired. We loved our visits to Athens, Mykonos, and Naxos, but we had also traveled a lot in each of those places. In Santorini, we ended up just napping a lot, trying to get in as much rest as possible before we had to rejoin the "real world."

So after our visit to Ammoudi, I think we took another nap during the afternoon, or otherwise just rested in our mostly ant-free new room. We headed back out in the late afternoon to stroll some more of Oia, and decided to get a snack from a little cafe window on the main pathway called Skiza, choosing some sort of cheese pie.

Six years later, we honestly don't remember much about the pie itself (no idea if it was better than the breakfast pies or not), but we must have generally liked it or we would probably remember not liking it. (Assumptions like this are not how we like recapping things, but can't go back in time to create notes!) Mostly though, we remember this little dog that kept following us after we bought the pie and trailed at our feet as we ate the entire thing, hoping for crumbs to drop (or maybe for a bite). This wasn't an uncommon sight in Santorini, but we didn't mind. Although we didn't feed it any of our pie, we didn't feel bad about that since there were stray food bins for dogs all around the town. In fact, at one point, A pointed out the bin to the dog. The dog walked over, looked into the feeder, and then immediately walked back to look at our pie (and us). Guess it didn't want that.

After our pie, we joined the crowds to catch the sunset, which was supposed to be most spectacular from Oia, and it was the best one we witnessed while we were there. Once the sun had set, it was time to get some dinner and close out our first full day on the island.

Sunset Taverna

Somehow it's already mid-May, which means we're coming up on the six year anniversary of our honeymoon in Greece. Sadly we've not finished recapping that, so getting back to that...

Our first full day in Santorini started off stressful (dealing with the ants but luckily they were able to move us into another room in the villa; less scenic but less pests), but immediately improved after getting some pies for breakfast. After the pies, we wandered around Oia for a bit, just taking in the sights (lots of weddings, stray dogs, and ants, but also pretty buildings and the caldera) before heading for the (very long) staircase that would take us down to the water and the small port area called Ammoudi. We figured that we would just relax a bit by the water, explore the town (we thought it would be bigger than it was), and have some lunch.

There were a lot of steps and they took far longer than we thought, and they were also covered with donkey droppings everywhere, especially as we got closer to the bottom. We were pretty happy when we finally got to the port and didn't have to walk on the steps anymore. After looking around the port a little bit, we picked a taverna that had tables steps away from the water and decided to go there for lunch. The meal started with the usual bread (€2 six years ago), which was fine but we don't remember it being anything special.

We also got the horiatiki salad (€7.50), lots of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and onions topped with feta cheese. We loved getting salads in Greece because all of the produce was just so fresh since everything was local.

We also got the tomato keftedes (€7.50), something we had previously read was a Santorini specialty. They were basically fried tomato patties, and we learned here that this was definitely something we wanted to get more of when we were in Santorini, especially if you couldn't really find them elsewhere. There was just something about the flavor, probably from all the fresh, local tomatoes they were made with, that made them so unique and so good.

Along with our vegetable appetizers, we got some freshly grilled fish (€29.25). A picked out the fish because M trusts him to do this. He picked out a skorpion [sic] fish because the workers said it was local. What they didn't mention was that it was a trash fish that was mostly just used in stews and not eaten whole like we were asking for. After reviewing the prices, he was happy to see that it was a moderately priced fish and not one of the more expensive fish types. (Whole fish could get really expensive at some spots in Greece.) He picked a medium sized one and asked them to grill it (and again, they never mentioned until later that that was not how it was usually prepared). As with all fresh fish grills we had gotten in Greece, it was a simple salt, pepper, olive oil, and herb grill with a lemon wedge on the side.

The fish wasn't bad, but it definitely wouldn't be our first choice if we were to ever do this meal again. A remembers that certain parts of it had a bit of a bitterness to it, and those could be the parts that were closer to the poisonous spines that this fish is known for. Thankfully neither of us got sick from eating this, but it's possible that those parts of the fish would have been left out if it were prepared in a stew. Otherwise the fish was a fairly standard flaky white fish, maybe a little firmer than the other ones we had gotten.

Overall, our meal here was nice. It was a great location on the water, the food was solid, and the weather was fantastic. A also got a frappe since he had fallen in love with them on this trip. The only real downside was that there was a very rude and loud family dining at the restaurant at the same time who seemed like they might have been from one of the many cruise ships that were docked in the area that day. They yelled at the staff about a simple mistake they made in a dish, and they were just generally so loud, what people usually think of as stereotypical loud Americans. They also seemed completely clueless about the geography or even where they were, and somewhat (loudly) proud of their ignorance, reinforcing more negative American stereotypes. Not the restaurant's fault though, and we felt pretty bad for the staff.

After relaxing in Ammoudi a little longer after our meal, we ended our time there by taking a taxi back up to Oia because we didn't feel like walking back up the donkey poop-filled stairs. There were also even more donkeys on the stairs after lunch so we could only imagine the fresh batches that would be awaiting us if we walked up. If you're going to Ammoudi, beware of the donkeys!

Passaris Nikolaos

We began every morning in Santorini the same way - with pies. On the pedestrian walkway into the heart of Oia, there was a small bakery that we passed by every day, and every day, we got some pies. I think we had read somewhere in our research that the bakery was really good, so we figured that would be a good spot for breakfast, since this was the one hotel on the entire trip where breakfast was not included.

The bakery's name appeared to be Passaris Nikolaos (if I am converting correctly from the Greek letters), and they were certainly popular. We aren't early morning people, no matter what time zone we're in (maybe someday that'll change), and by the time we got to the bakery in the morning (and it was still morning), there was never that much left. We were able to get some pies every day, but there were always some unavailable because of the demand.

One of the pies that we really liked (and I only know this because I see that we have photos of this pie on multiple days) was this special cheese pie. It reminded us a little bit of the one from Ariston in Athens, but that one was a little better, if we remember correctly this many years later.

We got a bunch of different types of cheese pies from the bakery over the few days we were in Santorini, and couldn't tell you at this point the names of the different ones or how they differed, but we definitely liked them for breakfast.

We didn't only get cheese pies though. We tried other pies including some with vegetable fillings. Unfortunately we couldn't tell you which pies we got on which days or any details, and we really wish we had written something down, but we've learned for the future. All we really remember is that we liked the pies.

One of the things we liked a lot about Greece was all the savory pies that you could get as snacks, whether you were in the city or the islands. There were pies everywhere. That's not as easy to do at home, especially for savory snacks, which is part of the reason we treasure the Greek bakery in our neighborhood. We love Greek pies!

Nectar and Ambrosia

We had high hopes for Santorini, since so many people described it as an absolute dream destination, but adjusting to the island, even in the spring when it wasn't as busy, was tough after our wonderful time in Naxos. It was much more crowded, there were so many more people, and we could feel the frenzy in the air that just wasn't there in Naxos. Add in a motion sickness-inducing taxi ride from the ferry, sudden cold and windy weather, and parades of ants everywhere, including right outside our cave studio, and we weren't the happiest people on the island.

We tried to make the best of it, and spent our first afternoon exploring the village of Oia in Santorini. Our hotel was in Oia, and it was supposed to be the most picturesque part of the island. It was definitely nice wandering the narrow streets, and the landscape of Santorini, especially the caldera, was breathtaking, even under the thick clouds. We had wanted to watch the sunset but considering the clouds and then the rain that started to fall, we just gave up for the day and decided to grab dinner. We picked Nectar and Ambrosia, a place we had on our list (I don't remember where we heard about it - maybe Chowhound?), which has apparently closed sometime between our 2011 visit and now. We didn't make advanced reservations, but since we were eating relatively early on Greek time and most of the tourists were trying to catch whatever sunset there was going to be, it was pretty empty.

We started off with some wine, choosing a local white wine made from grapes grown in the Cyclades. The winery was called Atlantis, and we got a blend of Assyrtiko, Athiri, and Aidani. Assyrtiko is a grape that is indigenous to Santorini, Athiri is indigenous to Rhodes, and Aidani is another grape indigenous to Santorini. The wine itself was similar to the retsinas we had in Athens as Athiri grapes are used a lot in those, but aside from that we don't remember a lot about it.

We started off with the Santorini Island Fava, which was a fava puree with caramelized onions, local capers, and pita triangles. When we had done our research in advance, one of the things everyone said you had to try in Santorini, as far as spreads, was the fava, as it was a local specialty. For our first dinner in Santorini, we knew we had to try it, and we were not disappointed. Fava spread is thicker than hummus but it has such a deep and unique flavor. It was a great start to our meal.

For a starter, we also ordered the Santorini Salad. If it's not already obvious, our plan was pretty much to order anything that sounded local, whether it was a specific dish unique to Santorini or, more likely, ingredients that were locally grown. This salad had small island tomatoes, cucumber, olives, capers and caper leaves, and green peppers on a bed of green leaves with Santorini Chloro soft cheese, balsamic vinegar, and Greek olive oil. (Thank goodness for photos of the menu when you don't have notes.) Everything was extremely fresh, and similar to when we were at Lefteris on Naxos, you could just taste the difference when the ingredients were local. We don't remember a lot about the cheese, but we do remember that everything in this salad felt and tasted so clean and fresh. You can really tell when food didn't have to travel far before being prepared.

For the main course, A got Nectar's Oven Lamb, which was lamb stuffed with manouri cheese and Florina peppers with herbed potato puree and rosemary sauce on the side. The sauce was very rich as it was made from stock (most likely lamb), and it paired very nicely with the roasted lamb. The lamb itself was cooked very well and was very tender. A doesn't remember much about the cheese, but he does remember that the potato puree in the rich sauce was quite delicious and the perfect complement to the lamb.

M's choice for her main course was the Santorini Moussaka, described as "white Santorini aubergine/eggplant layered with country lamb, beef, and pork, topped with a yogurt creme and red paprika accent." Moussaka is basically comfort food, and this was a very good version of it, even if it was a little bit fancier than your normal moussaka. It was rich and heavy, but that was to be expected.

The meal ended with a digestif that neither of us really remembers. This seemed like a fairly common practice in the Greek Islands though, as we got the same treatment (digestif) while in Naxos as well. All in all, we had a nice dinner at Nectar and Ambrosia. We had a little bit of sticker shock though, having just come from much more affordable Naxos. Here our entrees were around €18-19 with our appetizers coming in around €8-9 (and this was the pricing 5-6 years ago), while in Naxos our dishes were more around this appetizer price. The cost of being in a tourist haven, and also at what seemed like one of the nicer restaurants in the area! We did enjoy our dinner though, and strolled around Oia some more afterwards, as much as we could take since it had gotten pretty cold. After that, it was back to the hotel for a stressful night with the ants that we had realized were also all over our room, so invasive that we considered changing hotels if we couldn't get another room that was ant-free. At least we had a nice, filling dinner before having to deal with that.

Mini Greek Spirals

Trader Joe's has a bunch of different Greek snacks in the freezer these days, and A spotted these mini Greek spirals with leeks and feta cheese ($2.99) on one of our recent visits. Neither of us remembered seeing them before, but they sounded good. After all, we love leeks.

The spirals are made of phyllo dough and stuffed with leeks, mizithra cheese, and feta cheese, along with some dill, parsley, and other seasonings. (Although the box says feta, the mizithra is actually higher up on the ingredients list.) It was pretty quick to make, about 25 minutes in the oven. There were 12 spirals in the box (6 servings, so they say), and we ate the entire box for lunch.

M's review: I was happy when I took these out of the box and could see all the green leeks through the dough, since my biggest concern when I looked at the picture on the box was that it just looked like lots of phyllo dough with not much filling. The taste of the filling was very mild. The Greek cheeses were pretty subdued, and the leeks didn't have that strong, powerful leek flavor that I really love. That said, these spirals were fine and a nice snack, but I was just expecting much stronger flavors from the leeks and cheese.

Buy again? Maybe. They weren't bad but I would rather just mix leeks and feta cheese into some frozen spinach (even though that's apparently "out of stock" at TJ's until January) and stick it in the oven.

A's review: I liked these a lot. It won't replace the spinach and kale pie, but nothing ever will. It's a quick and easy meal that has good overall flavor. The leeks are a bit lost in this, but mizithra gave it a nice flavor. The phyllo crisped up nicely to give a bit of crunch on the onset with a soft, chewy texture inside.

Buy again? I would. If we ever see the spinach and kale pie again we'll probably buy out the whole store's quantity, but I doubt we ever do. These are fine as a sort-of-replacement.

Potato-Free Meze Meze

For our last dinner in Naxos, we went back to Meze Meze, getting another table outside on a nice spring night. We had had such a good dinner the night before, and the menu had so many other things that sounded good, so we wanted to try more. But one thing was for sure - we were not ordering any more potatoes. The fries and potato salad from the night before were so good, but we had gotten our fill of delicious Naxian potatoes and now it was time for other stuff.

We started off with some drinks, a beer for A and some iced tea for M. Not too much to say about those.

The first thing to arrive was, just like last time, a basket of bread, which cost €0.80 for each of us. Same as the night before.

After all those potatoes, we wanted to get a potato-free salad, choosing to go with the traditional Greek salad - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion, caper, olives, xinomizithra local cheese, and Cretan crispy bread with olive oil and lemon sauce - for €7.50. This was very similar to the Naxian potato salad from the night before, but with the potatoes being replaced by lettuce, cucumber, and Cretan crispy bread. The Cretan bread was one of the things we were most interested in trying since we weren't going to Crete on that trip. Five years later, we remember the salad being good - light and clean and satisfying - but not too many specifics. It just didn't imprint in our memories the way the Naxian potato salad did. The bread also didn't leave a lasting impression on us.

Since we were in the Greek Islands, we also decided to get some fish, another thing we skipped the night before. We went with the grilled fresh mackerel for €8, which came on a platter with some rice. The issue with the mackerel was that it was a thinner fish than other fish we had eaten in Greece so it was harder for M to get much of anything skinned and also off the bone. The fish itself was very fresh, though, and most of the work went to A to get the meat out. Memories of the rice have sadly also faded over time.

The last thing we ordered came as a recommendation from the waiter. We weren't sure what to order between three types of fried seafood, and he offered to let us have some of all three just like some other tables were enjoying. What arrived was a giant platter of what looked like "popcorn seafood" - half orders of small fried fish, small fried squid, and small fried shrimp - for €12. You ate the fish and squid whole, but the shrimp, you tore the head off and then ate the rest. It doesn't look like an especially huge plate, and the size of the plate itself wasn't very different from some of the others, but it was packed full of really tiny pieces of seafood. It took us an hour to eat all of it, as it just seemed like a neverending plate. We had eaten so much shrimp, fish, and squid, yet every time we looked up, the plate still looked full. We were happy though that we had the option to try all three and weren't disappointed at all with any of them. Everything was really good, but it took forever to eat, an experience we certainly wouldn't forget from our last night. Good thing we weren't really in a rush to go back to the hotel to pack.

After we (finally) finished our dinner, they brought out more complimentary citron and yogurt to end the meal, which we appreciated. The hospitality and the food at Meze Meze were superb, and we were so happy that we had chosen to eat there twice to try a wide range of what they had to offer. We were trying not to overdo it for our last dinner since we wanted to make one last trip to Milkato to get some more gelato, so there were so many more things we didn't get to try. We would definitely return here if we have the chance to go back to Naxos.