Athens: The Acropolis Museum and a return to Strofi

After a nice lunch at Strofi we took the short walk to the Acropolis Museum. This was, of course before all of the economic and civil turmoil in Greece, before the word austere was more commonly used to describe someones taste in decorating. We did though, see some signs which I'll describe in a future post.

The museum has a very modern design, though you're quickly reminded of the historic underpinnings of Greece by just simply looking down before you enter the museum as it built right over an archaeological site. You can look upon the site through the glass floors before entering the museum.

The museum consists of four floors and beyond the ubiquitous restaurant and multi-media areas, is divided into basic time periods, with the Parthenon display taking up almost all of the third floor. sorry to say no photos are allowed. But since we didn't find out until we snapped a couple....there was no clear signs....here's a couple.

We did stop as soon as we saw a sign.

Worth a visit if you're in Athens, admission is 5 Euros.

After checking out the museum we took a leisurely stroll back ot the hotel, passing the various apartments and shops along the way. We even passed "Asian Market" a small convenience stored sized shop full of Filipinos buying snacks and other food items.

We freshened up, took a short nap, and being a bit tired decided to go back ot Strofi for dinner. After all, we enjoyed lunch so much and tomorrow was going to be a full day. Arriving at the restaurant we were led back up to the top floor patio with the wonderful view of the Acropolis.

And of course, the Missus ordered a liter of the house red wine vefore we even sat down. As with most of Europe, folks eat pretty late. The Missus and I however, usually eat fairly early, which was good since the restaurant started filling up. I'll get into this a bit more later on.....

We started with some bread with herbs, which was on the very dry side.

The Missus and I quickly noticed something about the staff here. There seemed to be no sense of urgency, even as the restaurant was filling up. There seemed to be a pretty blasé attitude. After seeing this, we decided to forgo appetizers and just order our entrees. Getting our order in was a good move. The couple sitting right next ot us came in about 10 minutes after us hadn't even gotten their appetizers and worked through a whole liter of white wine by the time we had finished our meal and left. They weren't the only ones, we saw several tables complaining about the slow service. It just seemed that the kitchen and the front of house was not up to the task. And the patio dining area wasn't totally full.

The Missus ordered the Kid Goat in Parchment Paper (15.5 Euros - about $24 US at the time of our visit).

The goat was very tender, though under seasoned for our tastes. The sauce was also quite bland and the gruyere cheese melted over the potatoes really didn't add much to the whole dish.

I went with the Baked Lamb Shank with Rosemary and Potatoes (14 Euros - about $22.50 US at the time). I was really looking forward to having some lamb in Greece, but this was a disappointment.

Pictures don't lie. This was tough, dry, and lacked the flavor of lamb. It was severely under-seasoned. I'm usually not a huge fan of rosemary, but in this case I sorely wanted more...well of anything. I actually poured olive oil and used the salt shaker, something I almost never do. The potatoes were done well, but also lacked flavor.

This had us scratching our heads. Lunch was pretty good, well flavored, what happened to dinner. Plus, we seemed to be in the midst of some pretty unhappy customers as most hadn't even gotten their apps yet. We decided to cut our losses and head back to the room.

After all, we'd have to be up early in the morning to grab some breakfast then get to here......

before the masses descend upon the place.

Comments

[kat]

too bad about that dinner, can't wait to hear more about your adventure!

[Jess]

Just in time to see your post on Athens! I'm working on the DIY walking tour of the city for my upcoming visit thus enjoying your post very much. Too bad I'll only be there on a Monday and it appears that the New Acropolis Museum closes on Mondays. =T Sorry to hear about the restaurant being a hit-or-miss. Hope you had found another eatery that you enjoyed!

[Kirk]

Hi Kat - Yeah, that dinner was pretty mediocre.....

Hi Jess - I'll try to get more Athens stuff up pretty quickly.

[grey]

At first I was thinking maybe the laid back attitude was a cultural issue but the food looks pretty bad. For my taste- I can look over shoddy service if the food is great. Too bad to travel so far for "blah"

[Kirk]

Hi Grey - Yeah. Lunch was actually good, but maybe because most of the items can be prepped ahead of time and there were no other customers in the place. Dinner was just not that great and service was very slow.