Athens / Aegina recommendations requested

[small h]

We have a reservation for Varoulko, which better be good, 'cause it will coincide with me entering a new decade, and who knows how many of those I have left.

 

The following are on my list of maybes in Athens:

Diporto Taverna

Liondi

To Triantafyllo tis Nostimias

Linou Soumpasis k sia

 

And this is my list of maybes in Aegina:

Tavern Agora

Pelaïsos

Ouzeri o Skotadis

 

Wisdom? Advice? Thoughts? Warnings?

 

 

 

Edited April 20 by small h

[Mitchell101]

I can’t recommend Aleria enough in Athens. Just a fantastic dinner in a beautiful courtyard. 

[small h]

Thank you! I'll see if we can make that work!

[small h]

Some highlights from the trip. We only went to one of the places on my original list (and it was pretty mid, as the kids say). 

Sardines at Varvakios Market. A very generous portion for five euros. Oysters at the same stand were eight or ten euros each, which I thought was kind of bizarre.

Taramasalata and a gratis yogurt dessert from Καραμανλίδικα. We lucked into a table at this very popular mostly-deli in Monastiraki.

Fine dining in Athens apparently means "pour stuff next to other stuff." Three of the dishes in our fancymeal at Varoulko on the Piraeus waterfront had this little flourish. This is a riff on dolmades - sorrel enclosing seafood paste. Click to see all the action!

 Composed crab dish with green apple (and stuff poured next to it).

Mullet with "cauliflower textures" and "carrot gel." Sure, why not. (It was very good.) Also, stuff poured next to it.

Gopes at Fish Taverna on Aegina. I'd never heard of gopes. The internet offers five or six other names for it, but I'm sticking with gopes.

Crazy bitter greens, more of a medicine than a food. Probably horta, but when you boil something this hard, it's tough to tell.

Excellent eggplant salad and what was listed on the menu as "shrimp cooked with barley" (barley apparently = orzo) at Ouzeri o Skotadis, one of the approximately 87 interchangeable seaside restaurants in Aegina.

Breakfast of champions - a cheese pie on the boardwalk.

Back in Athens at Ella, owned by a friend of a friend. Really nice yellow split pea mash with lentils and grilled tomato, unimpressive fries, nice citrus and beet salad.

And at the bar next door, which had a Muhammed Ali theme (?), our second encounter with Athens' other trend - drinks with sorbet, in this case, apple and basil. Here is The Rashomon Effect. Why is it called that? No idea. What does Rashomon have to do with Muhammed Ali? Also no idea.

So! I've very old, now. But at least I spent my birthday someplace even older than me.