mmm-yoso!!!

Crete - Chania: A morning walk, farmer's market, Vasiliko (again), the Agora, and staying in for dinner

Crete, and Chania specifically had worked its magic on us. we were really charmedby the town, the alleyways and cobblestone pathways that wove around the Venetian structures really took you to a different time. Especially in the early evenings when the day-trippers had left and the partyiers were taking a little siesta before a hard night. The mornings were even more fun as the usually packed areas are devoid of activity other than restaurant workers setting up for the day. There's a peacefulness that overtakes you.

The Missus and I walked through just about every street close to the harbor, just soaking in the personality of the old town. It's hard ot imagine that this part of Chania was heavily bombed during World War II, or that much of the population of the city were either imprisoned or executed by the Germans, suspected of participating in the resistance. Almost the entire Jewish population of the town was shipped off to camps during that time as well, essentially destroying what was a very long history on Crete.

Yet, the beauty and charm of the town survived......

It was a nice time to try and figure out where we'd want to have our next meal....and perhaps where we wouldn't.....

I don't think that I mentioned that a pretty impressive wall was built by the Venetians around what is now Old Town. Unfortunately, the fortifications didn't stop the Ottomans from taking the town from the Venetians in 1645.

On this morning, we headed around the city walls and into Chania proper.

So what would lead us out of Old Town? Well you know it had to do with food right? When we headed out from Madonna Studio's in the morning, I stop and chatted with Thomais, who noted my interest in food. She told me that today was "market day" and the local one was just outside the city walls in front of the fishing harbor. You know I just can't resist these, right?

 I believe it's fellow blogger Lynnea, who once mentioned that the classic mmm-yoso travel post will always include farmer's markets and dogs....well, here's the proud little fellow who followed us to the market...then found more interesting folks to follow....

In contrast to the sleepy Old Town, the market was pretty busy.......

The location overlooking the harbor is quite nice as well.......

While walking through the market admiring the super fresh offerings the Missus had an idea.....

Why don't we....which of course means me, make dinner tonight? Well, I hadn't really taken inventory of what was available in our room. I did note a two top burner set-up, so the Missus settled on having a big lunch and a very, very, simple mostly veg dinner. Which was a relief to me since as much as I was tempted to try stuff like this.....

I really didn't feel up to it. So we kept it very simple.......

We headed back to our room with our bounty, then the Missus settled back in to start reading one of the books in the cabinets....book exchanges are wonderful!

When lunch rolled around, the Missus had only one thing one Her mind.......Vasiliko again. Which was just fine for me......

This time around, I ordered the calamari, just to see how it would be. The Missus isn't a big fan of the usual tough squid, but this was very tender....very, very, tender.

Of course we had the octopus....we just had too.

As we had our cheese pie and raki, one of the gentleman working here came over to chat. He had remembered us from the day before. Along with the infamous "how can you live without olive oil", we now got the "why sea salt is healthy for you" presentation.......

 Opening the little container of sea salt on the table, "you know, sea salt is very healthy for you....more healthy than almost anything! I will tell you why!" I look at the Missus with an amused look, we're both just waiting for the shoe to drop. "I can take all this sea salt, pour it in water, then mix....it will dissolve, be all gone. The same thing must happen in your body....so it can do you no harm!" We look at each other, trying not to laugh. He looks at us and add the disclaimer, "of course, if any of you is a doctor or medical person, I take this all back!" You gotta love it!!!

After lunch we returned to our room, the Missus settled in,but I was wide awake. I decided to head out for provisions I needed for dinner. Along the way out I got some directions from Thomais to the local market....

I also decided to stop by the Agora, the old central market which is fairly close by........

The building that houses the market is quite impressive; built in the shape of a cross it was inaugurated back in 1913, when Crete was officially unified with Greece as part of the Treaty of London. On this day, when I arrived, the Agora was almost totally empty. It was late in the day and all the seafood vendors had cleaned up and were long gone.

Though most of the other shops were open, the place had a "ghost town" feel to it.

It was nice to walk around a bit, but I ended up going to the market to purchase, well. just a couple of bottles of wine really.

You see, when I asked Thomais about finding a market nearby, she asked me why. I mentioned needing some salt and perhaps a little olive oil. Did I mention how generous and accommodating Thomais is? Well, I was told not to worry about salt.....and Thomais also brought us olive oil pressed from her very own trees!

Does service get any better than that? Really? We popped open the bottle of red I got from the market...the Missus had a seat on the little porch under the late afternoon sun in Chania.

It was a very humble dinner........quite simple. But this was Crete and the pure and simple are savored. Of course here, the tomatoes are sold when they are truly ripe.

So what better than a simple salad dressed with fresh pressed olive oil.........

We really took our time with dinner.

Soon we finished that bottle of red and I opened the bottle of white we bought in Iraklios. It refreshed us......

We started in on the bread and cheese we bought earlier in the day. Such substance filled us up.

Our main course may seem perhaps too simple, but we truly enjoyed it. The flavors of potatoes picked the day before, zucchini, fresh, ripe, and sweet. Just simmered in water and dressed with sea salt and olive oil......something this simple would actually cost you much more here if bought from the grower here in the U.S......this actually cost us 3 Euros, farm fresh.

After dinner, we took a walk....we had hit that mellow evening time, before much of the dinner crowd had come out.

I'd always thought the lighting at twilight and dusk to be the same, but it is surely not true.....

It's easy enough to be taken by the charm of Chania to forget the history. And you can be easily overwhelmed by the history of Chania as well. Our after dinner walk took us to a street just off the waterfront and up a hill. Here we found a archaeological site right in the middle of a group of buildings and apartments. Apparently, this is the location of one of the city's original settlements on the Hill of Kastelli, where the Minoan's settled in 3000 BC.

This was a nice post-dinner walk. But of course, according to Cretan tradition, we never finished dinner! We never had raki.......luckily, I had also bought a little bottle of raki at the market. This turned out to be good stuff! And it was a nice aperitif....especially for me. The next morning we were to hike the Samarian Gorge!

Revisits: Spicy House, Latin Chef, and 2 others you might know......

Sometimes it's really hard to get excited about recently opened places and I often neglect places we used to go to alot or haven't been back to recently, so here's a couple.

Spicy House:

Now Spicy house seems to be a favorite of JeffL and I'd been there at almost a dozen times, I've documented maybe three of those visits. Recently my coworker YZ, whom I shared some interesting Sichuan meals with in Madison had time to grab lunch. We decided on Spicy House. The place was doing some pretty good business when we visited.

We started with the Pork Intestines with Preserved Vegetable.

This was better than what I'd had before at Spicy House, the flavor of the intestine was a nice funky-musty without overwhelming the dish. The preserved vegetable was cut into manageable pieces this time around and helped to heighten the mild heat as well as cut the offal flavor.

We also ordered the Shui Zhu Yu - the water boiled fish.

The flavor decent, nice heat, but lacking in Sichuan Peppercorn and Doubian Jian - bean paste. I like a nice layer of oil, but this was a bit too much. The amount of fish was generous, the pieces large, though very thin. I thought the fish was prepared decently, but when I brought the rest of it home, the Missus thought it to be one the mealy side.

Overall, this was pretty good....I guess I'm missing Chinese food.....

Spicy House
3860 Convoy Street #105
San Diego, CA 92111

Latin Chef:

There was a time when we'd be at Latin Chef just about every week. But over the years things seemed to have changed and when I visited twice last year, the food was especially salty. Another thing seemed to be missing on my visits to Latin Chef, the owner, Freddy. Whenever he's there, the food and service is much better.

Anyway, we had a bunch of days where it was almost like summer recently, so I thought I'd drive on down to PB and see what was up with Latin Chef. It was lunchtime and the place was deserted. No Freddy either....I hope he's doing well. I asked the served and she just shrugged and told me, "he was here yesterday......" As she dropped off the chanchita....which was stale.

I was pretty hungry and started things out with the Cebiche Pescado.

Which was nice, the leche de tigre (the cebiche marinade) was bracing and refreshing. The fish seemed to need a few more minutes bathing in the leche de tigre, but this was nice overall.

The pescado frito was another story.

While the fish was wonderfully thin and crisp, there was way too much salt on this....so much that it edged on being bitter.

This is how my meals have been recently at Latin Chef....kind of a mixed bag. Perhaps the place is getting a bit stale. I know that since the original chef left a couple of years, taking the recipe for tiradito with him, things just haven't been the same. I'm hoping my next visit will be better.

Latin Chef
1142 Garnet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109

And here are a couple just for the heck of it......

I hope you had a great weekend!

Crete - Chania: A short walk and dinner

Things start slowing down as evening nears in Chania. The cruise ship and day-trippers have gone and I guess the party folks are resting up for a busy night. For us, photos just seem to come to life during the twilight hours as all the haze melts away into the background.

We took a walk to stimulate our apettite and to just explore a bit.

This town sure has charm, that's for sure......restaurants and cafes seem to be everywhere, tucked into every little spot where there's room for a couple of tables.

Our visit took place before all the riots and austerity measures took effect, but there were hints of it in the air, as we saw protests on two of our nights in Chania.

For visitors like us, it can be difficult to reconcile the beauty of the town, with the difficulties of living here.......

By this time, the sun was going down and we decided to grab a small bite somewhere near to where we were.

We ended up at a very popular restaurant, noted in many of the guidebooks.

It turned out to be out least favorite meal on Crete. It wasn't bad, just not very good. Perhaps staying away from seafood wasn't the best choice.

It's very hard to feel disappointed in such a beautiful place as this......

 

Beijing: Eating with Mr.D Part 1 - Jinsite Restaurant

During the last leg of our trip to China, we ended up back in Beijing. The son of a former coworker of my MIL, whom we really hit it off with during a previous dinner, offered to take us to dinner. We knew this wasn't going to be an ordinary dinner. You see, even though MrD was born and raised in Beijing, he and his wife are truly food lovers......they don't know the names of any streets or even addresses. Navigation around Beijing is done via their own internal GPS, it's based off restaurant locations! This was to be illustrated in a pretty funny way a bit later on during our stay in Beijing.

MrD and his Wife ended up taking us to two dinners....in a single night! The first stop was through a gate on some side street....I really had no idea where we were and neither did the Missus.

Once the car was parked we walked through a set of doors.....

And then through another set of doors.......

We could quickly tell what type of restaurant this was by the decor.

And by the photos in the menu....since I couldn't read it! This was obviously a Xinjiang cuisine restaurant, which got me kind of excited, I've had lots of Islamic Chinese food, but at that point in time, I really hadn't had very much honest to goodness Uyghur style dishes. There is a difference. From what I understand, most Islamic Chinese that we have here is based off of Beijing and Shandong style Halal cuisine, whereas true Xinjiang cuisine is based on what is eaten in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region.

This photo really got me hungry......it's called Kao Quan Yang (烤全羊) in case you feel like ordering it!

Things started off with some Suan Nai, less sweet than most of the Suan Nai we'd had to date in Beijing.

The name of the flat breads might sound familiar, it's called Kao Nang (烤馕), as in "naan".

One of the most popular dishes of Xinjiang Cuisine is Rice to be Eaten with the Hands (Xinjiang Shou Zhua Fan 新疆手抓饭). The problem for me was to remember to eat with my right hand as I'm left handed, and you know why that's a problem in Islam, right?

The rice was much richer than I thought it would be. It was very "mutton-ny".

Next up was the Xinjiang style Stewed Mutton (Xinjiang Shou Zhua Yang Rou 新疆手抓羊肉)

Which was very simple and basic in flavor.

Up next, was a variety of Chuanr......

 Your basic "meat on a stick". I'm not a big fan of kidney, but I gotta say that it was my favorite along with the meat that was grilled on the reused and highly "seasoned" wooden skewers..... nothing like layers of flavors from kebabs of the past I guess.

Man, this was a load of food! But of course, this was just our first stop!

Stay tuned........

Chicken Wing Thing: 777 (redux), Luong Hai Ky (Convoy), and Pho Mignon + Grill

Man, I've been doing Chicken Wing posts for so long that I'm starting to do revisits already! So anyway, here we go......

777 Noodle House:

Though I enjoy visiting here quite often, I really wasn't a big fan of the chicken wings. But, for some reason, I decided to try them again during a recent meal.

Whereas the coating was on crumbly and oily side before, this time they were fried to a crisp perfection. They look a bit darker than I remembered. Still delivered sizzling hot, but also still in need of a bit more seasoning. Still, much better than before.

777 Noodle House
4686 University Avenue
San Diego, CA 92105 

Luong Hai Ky:

**** This location of Luong Hai Ky has closed

I've been underwhelmed during my vists to Luong Hai Ky since they've returned to the Convoy area. The food hasn't been consistent. Still, I hadn't even had the chicken wings here so I thought I'd give them a shot. So here are the Canh Ga from LHK.

The wings were very low quality, many of the bones were broken and splintered and the flesh near the bones blackened. Not much in the way of real flavor other than some bits of bitter burnt garlic and a couple of slices of serrano that really hadn't been able to impart it's flavor to the wings.  The skin was on the gummy side too. Pass......

Luong Hai Ky Restaurant
4633 Convoy St Ste 107
San Diego, CA 92111

 Pho Mignon:

I'd had the "Saigon Wings" before and thought they were gummy and bland. Still, I thought I'd give them another shot ($5.95 - 6 wings). These were better than my first experience with them when they first opened. Still, very mildly flavored they just don't stand up to the wings at Que Huong, not enough sweet-salty-spiciness, almost like they're afraid to commit themselves.

It's sad when the best thing I've had at a Vietnamese Restaurant is their french fries.

Mignon Pho + Grill
3860 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111 

Man, three strikes and I'm out I guess. Bummer, I guess I'll be needing a fix of this soon.

Crete - Chania: Madonna Studios and lunch at Vasiliko

We were kind of sad to leave Iraklios, especially after the two really nice meals we had, but it time to move on. We checked out of our hotel and walked the couple of kilometers to "Bus Station A" and bought our tickets to Chania. Compared to other cities w had quite an easy time finding our way to our hotel, even though it was tucked away down a little street a few yards from the Venetian Harbor. Once you find Plateia 1866 it's just a matter of time before you hit all the tourists and you'll know you're there.

We walked along the waterfront, past all the tourist tavernas and shops and found a quiet little side street where Madonna Studios was located.

There are 5 studio apartments in an 800 year old building that is Madonna Studios. I've got to truly say, of all the places we've stayed, this is one of our favorites. And one good reason is the hospitality. The one woman running the place is named Thomais and embodies the spirit of your favorite aunt in the world. She is kind, warm, and as we were to find out very generous. When we arrived there was a little welcome gift set out for us.

Which included apple cake, cookies, and water.......it really made us feel welcomed. The place had a small kitchenette which we ended up using and a small television which was did not use. The Missus was taken by the rustic charm of the place and immediately told me to run downstairs and take a photo of Her on the little patio.

 There was another little patio overlooking the small courtyard. We ended up having coffee here in the morning, some wine in the evening, and even eating dinner here one night.

For some reason the place just seemed right up our alley..........simple, but charming.

We loved watching the tiny street below.....even when nothing was going on.

After taking our sweet time stowing our stuff and taking a nice post bus ride shower, we headed out past the now maddening crowd on the waterfront. Even though the place was crowded, the beauty of the Venetian Harbor shone through. One only needed to look out at the Venetian Lighthouse which guards the harbor, a Chania landmark.

The Missus' birthday was approaching and She decided that Chania would be the perfect place to do some shopping. Somehow, we ended up past most of the tourists, in the area near the Agora. The Missus looked into this little shop, which had opened so recently, that they didn't even have a sign yet.

It was a cute Mom and Pop operation. The owner's son was a very mellow and nice guy, and the Missus found something She liked.

The young man was so nice, we asked him for a lunch recommendation. He had a couple ofsuggestions and told us that his nearby favorite, "is not very pretty, but they make good food, is reasonable, and is even on the waterfront, but many locals eat there." Sounded like the right place! He drew us a little map with the name of the place, Vassiliko. We thanked him and with the Missus's new earrings in tow headed out past the Mosque and the Great Arsenal and easily found the little Taverna.

It was indeed not a fancy place, looking a bit worn, but there seemed to be quite a few older gentleman eating there, a good sign.

What we noticed during our visits, we made more than one, was that tourists would sit at the outer four or five tables and order something like tzadziki and a glass of wine. All the men were having some major meals.

Of course, we were in Greece, so the Missus had to have some wine.....this time the house white.

Another thing I quickly noticed were the cats. THey avoided the outer ring but were right at home past those tables and obviously knew a good thing.

We started with horta, because the Missus couldn't get enough of it, and also because the gentleman taking our order told us that we needed some vegetable to make it a balanced meal! He was a hoot and we have an even funnier story about him later.

Anyway, the horta was nicely prepared, slightly bitter, with a mildly sweet flavor.

We saw another table just going to town on the small fried fish, basically fried whitebait so we had some of that as well.

On the way from the bus station I passed two fishmarkets and there were a couple of items that looked really good. The clear waters around the Greek Isles is so breathtakingly beautiful, but it is not especially fruitful, except for a couple of animals.

The Missus is not particularly fond of octopus, but I just had to order it.

Grilled and seasoned with salt, lemon, and olive oil, this was heaven. The octopus was so tender you could cut it with a spoon! For the Missus it was love at first bite, She had never had octopus like this before and just loved it. This was one of, if not our favorite dish of the trip. So perfectly simple.

The Missus was afraid of the cuttlefish, but after the octopus She was game.

Not as tender as the octopus, but this had picked up a bit of smokiness during the grilling process.

And the meal ended in just perfect fashion for us, some cheese pie, savory and mildly salty, drizzled with honey, and some raki.......

Vasiliko was the perfect place for us, not crowded with tourists, and we could still people watch while having lunch.

Lunch had energized the Missus and She decided to make the kilometer or so walk out on the sea wall to the lighthouse.

 It an easy walk, though perhaps a bit windy.

The Missus climbed up the stairs of the lighthouse to take a zillion photos. The view of Chania's waterfront from here is amazing.

Though I took this photo....wish I had a panoramic camera for the shot. It's almost too eays to take a nice photo here.

As we walked back to our room for an afternoon nap, we reflected on how really pretty this city was.

This part of Chania just seemed to be made for postcards.......

It was hard to take a bad shot......

Thanks for reading!
 

COMC: Gaijin Noodle + Sake House

 *** Gaijin has closed

Here are some photos that have been taking up space on my hard drive. I thought it would be good for a COMC (Clearing Out the Memory Card) post.

Gaijin is located in the former Cheese Shop location in the Gaslamp. The menu is interesting, featuring straight up yakitori grilled on binchotan by the former yakitori chef at Raku, along with fusion robata, noodle, and other Japanese - Italian dishes.

Coming from Hawaii, I've had my fair share of Asian Fusion that I'd term as "shibai" and after a couple of meals at Gaijin, I really think this place is trying to serve up some good stuff and do the right thing.

Like I mentioned, this place uses binchotan charcoal for the robatayaki, but during my visits, it seemed like the main yakitori guy was never making it, just usually prepping or doing other stuff. It did seem like the yakitori standards like the "momo" chicken thigh was very pale and lacking in salt.

On the other hand, the couple of times I had the tsukune, the chicken "meatball", they had allowed the "tare" to burn making it bitter. Also, they use quite a bit of ginger in the mix, which detracted from my enjoyment.

The gyutan, beef tongue is usually one of my favorites, but as with the momo, this version was under salted. For some reason they like to use a lot of black pepper here.

Same with the harami.....skirt steak.

The items I've enjoyed the best were usually wrapped in Nueske bacon, which I first tasted on one of my trips to Wisconsin or some of the more non-traditional items, like the portobello mushroom, basted with tare and finished with a touch of truffle oil.

The pork kimchi, a riff on buta-shiso also works well, as the kimchi is more of a Japanese, quick style kimchi, not overly fermented in flavor. It works well with the girlled pork, which was nicely moist.

I won't go into deep detail regarding the un-Hakata like Spicy Miso Chashu Hakata ramen($12). The flavor reminded me of kimchi base and the noodles were typical ramen noodles and over-cooked.

I really loved the flavor of the Uni Green Tea Soba Noodles ($11). Don't be shocked at the portion size as this is pretty rich stuff. The uni butter and other ingredients gives this a flavor like an oceany carbonara.

I love cha soba and the problem I had with this dish is that I'm of the school that soba should always be al dente and both times I had this the soba was mushy.

My favorite dish on the menu, is not on the menu. On a visit with my good FOY Candice, who knows the Chef, they sent out this wonderful dish called Bacon and Eggs, a combination of the wonderful soft boiled ajitsuke tamago, in ramen broth, with bacon bits.

It has three of my favorite "food groups"...... You can just order it and the folks in the kitchen will know what to make. I really like this and intend of having it again soon.

The prices aren't cheap, though that's understandable based on the location. I will say that while the yakitori here isn't up to Yakyudori, I believe that it is much better than what I last had a Koubou.

The place is fairly small, but the service was very friendly, especially earlier in the evening before the place got really busy.

Going against character, I enjoyed more of the fusion style dishes than the standards. I also found that you can order single skewers even though prices are based on two skewers. I guess we're in the midst of a bit of a ramen revolution in San Diego. What I found funny was that two of the Servers are from Hawaii and they pegged me as an ex-pat kama'aina from the moment I opened my mouth!

Gaijin Noodle + Sake House
627 4th Ave
San Diego, CA 92101

Lana'i: The Lodge at Koele and dinner

During my previous two visits to Lana'i, more than 17 years ago, I'd really enjoyed checking out the Lodge at Koele. Located on the former site of the Lana'i Company Ranch and Headquarters "the Lodge" is located maybe a half mile from the center of Lana'i City. Of course, it's pretty much impossible to get lost near the city so we decided to walk to the Lodge. You basically take Lana'i Road until it ends. The area looks very "upcountry" as we call it.

You then take a right and head up the pine lined road.......

And you'll soon see the Lodge at Koele.....

The hotel stands in stark contrast to the Manele Bay Resort, the Lodge has an "old English" feel to it.......

The grounds are wonderfully manicured....wild turkeys and all.

Actually, I just wanted the Missus to see one thing at the lodge.

It's the orchid house, which overlooks the lake and some of the golf course.......

There's a little table and chairs in the greenhouse which is so very calm and relaxing if no one else is there.

Wouldn't it make a great place for your morning tea or coffee?

Of course, the orchids aren't too shabby either, I posted a couple of photos in a previous post, but here are a few more.

There are only 102 rooms at the Lodge, so it has a feel of real exclusivity.....

Later that evening, we decided to check out a restaurant called Pele's Other Garden in Lana'i City. The dinner turned out fine, though the guy managing the front was pretty much a jerk. We got there at about 5pm and walked in. The guy leaning on the counter looked at us and said, "yeah....". I asked if they were open, he said, "does it look like we're open?" Geeez, what a putz. Next thing out of his mouth, "do you have reservations?" I said "no." He said, "can you read?" There seemed to be reservation signs on almost every table. Ok, fine, I turned to leave....he interrupted our exit by pointing to a corner table and said "there...." And here I thought they called this the hospitality industry? Whatever....the young lady who served us was very nice and friendly. The jerk seemed to treat everyone he knew nice, but everyone else was fair game.

Our dinner was decent. The smoked salmon appetizer had a generous amount of salmon.

And the bruschetta was nice, tough the balsamic reduction was very strong.

The vegetarian pizza had too much cheese and the crust was gummy.

During our meal, we saw the guy insult several other customers, even those with reservations. I later asked someone local whether the dude suffered from severe bowel obstructions or terminal lemon sucking syndrome. I got the best explanation from her, 'ah, he's just a bitter Haole from New York who couldn't make it anywhere else."

By the time we walked back to our room, the Missus had already moved on to Her next thing. She had some app that did constellations and stood there like a doufus in the parking lot of the Hotel Lana'i pointing Her iPhone to the sky.......

Then She got an even better idea....."why don't we walk back to the Lodge? I think the sky there is clearer!" So we ended up walking back, and there we were standing in the darkness in the back of the Lodge at Koele. While the Missus was busy staring at the now cloud covered sky and tripping over stuff, I took some photos.

The place is photogenic...even at night.

Funny thing happened while we were walking around. They locked the back door to the lobby area of the hotel.

That wasn't a problem though, as we just walked to one of the hallways and entered that way.

While walking back in the very quiet darkness, I told the Missus that according to legend, the island of Lana'i was home to evil, man-eating spirits........ We did end up back to our cottage, with all limbs and digits intact.

The next morning we partook of the free breakfast spread at the hotel, then caught the shuttle and out flight back to Oahu. Here are some photos with a couple of familiar landmarks in them.

Thanks for reading!

Crete - Iraklios: Erganos

The previous night we had a wonderful dinner, a recommendation from the hotel front desk...so why not go to the well again? This time, the gentleman at the front desk took a map and drew us a path toward the southern city walls, to a place called Erganos. It was a pleasant walk, the weather was perfect for a rather leisure walk. When we hit this building, the Missus looked at the sign and told me, "this is the place."

 I guess the sign did say Erganos? I dunno, I might still be wandering around Crete if not for the Missus's savant like Greek translating skills.

The restaurant itself gives one a warm feeling, it tends to wrap itself around you upon entering. Of course, this being the ungodly hour of 530pm, the place was totally empty. Though the one guy working the front was moving tables together setting up for a large crowd. Luckily, he spoke very good English.

He was very friendly and chatty and with good cheer told us that the majority of folks coming here to eat were Greek tourists and locals.

The menu itself was very interesting, not a single souvlaki or moussaka on the menu! Those items were replaced with dishes like Apaki, a traditional Cretan smoked pork, and Gardoumakia, which was explained as lamb stomach wrapped in intestine and cooked in a dill white sauce.

Of course the Missus was just happy to have rusk, which came in the bread basket.

The bread was accompanied by some very briney olives and a light, but grassy olive oil....which led to a funny conversation with our server.

While talking about the Cretan's love for olive oil we mentioned that Americans only consume maybe one tenth of the olive oil a Cretan has during a year. He gave us an incredulous look and said; "but....but....how can you make a salad....how can you cook your food?" Which had us laughing....there's no life without olive oil in Crete!

Of course the Missus was on Her mission of having wine with every lunch and dinner....in this case She went with a half liter of the white and a half of the house red!

The horta, Cretan wild greens were very good, pleasantly bitter, and the lemon added a nice acid component which lifted the dish.

 Of course the Missus wanted Her Fava Skordalia, which was very nicely prepared, thick and beany, without being grainy.

I'd been wanting to have a taste of the famous Cretan snails and they had those on the menu.

The snails looked pretty small, but where actually pretty good sized when you got one out of their shell. Very meaty, but too chewy for the Missus, who loved sucking on the salty and olive oil flavored shells. I actually enjoyed these.

I was thinking about  trying the splinogardoumo, a pork spleen (blood) sausage, but instead went with the fried glykadia.

These were lamb sweetbreads, crisp at first bite, then meltingly rich and creamy, it was love at first bite. Man, did I enjoy these. The Missus thought it too rich, was this really the same person who loved the steamed pig brains in Luang Prabang?

I really wanted to try some straight up lamb dish and went with the lamb with potatoes roasted over wood.

You had to work for your meat, but man this was delicious....the potatoes had been "basted" with with lamb drippings and were very tasty.

At most places in Crete, dessert is complimentary......

And came with anywhere from a small carafe or a couple of glasses of Tsikoudia, which they call Raki in Crete (versus raki in Turkey which is more like Ouzo). This was a nice version, a bit of a bite as you'd imagine from a drink made from the residue of the wine presses. We were told, that Erganos, like any good Cretan restaurant, makes their own Raki. Apparently this stuff is like 70-80 proof and is the stuff, not ouzo, that makes Greeks "dance on the table". Don't know if was the vacation thing or what, but this stuff never touched us...even the Missus who is a bit of a lightweight. In fact, I've been trying to find this since we've returned from our trip....but perhaps it's better that I don't.

As you can tell, we were eating well in Crete......

Erganos (Εργανος)
Georgiadis 5 Oasi
Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Midweek Meanderings: BaLe returning to Linda Vista, Trattoria Firenze closes, and what I've been eating.....

Bale returning to Linda Vista:

I recalled seeing a sign at the Tet Festival, but was wondering if it was truly going to happen. Well, after seeing this sign:

It'll be taking the place of Toan Ky.

6925 B Linda Vista Road
San Diego, CA 92111

Trattoria Firenze closes:

I went to buy some produce at Henry'sSprouts on Clairemont Drive and noticed the place was closed:

The sign said it all. Originally, the place was excellent. The chef/owner who worked at the French Laundry made all his own pasta and some major chops. I ate there twice before the chef left....sorry, I usually don't do posts on places like that. I guess Clairemont just wasn't ready for, or prepared to support a place like that. Too bad. He left the place to his parents and it settled into simple, everyday eats.....sometimes a decent place for quick take-out, at other times, well, not so good. The woman who worked there looked really tired and I'm kinda relieved for her. Godspeed......

4421 Genesee Ave
San Diego, CA 92117

I've been eating at home alot.....

I don't know if I'm bored, tired, or if what seems like early summer weather is affecting my appetite, but I've been having stuff like this at home.

Just Tako Sashimi......

Hiyakko Tofu....

And some grape tomato and sweet onion salad with ponzu dressing.....

Of course natto and rice with some boiled eggs suit me just fine as well.....

So, what have you been eating?