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Starting to sort out our summer holidays, and hope to get to Greece this year, Corfu, Zakynthos or Crete. Since food is a real passion of mine, I always enjoy exploring the cuisine of the countries I visit, accepting that I am a tourist and so will have limited access to certain types of food, either through lack of local knowledge, or language and culture problems.

Has anyone any particular recommendations or advice, to enjoy the mediterranean diet at its best (including the alcohol side of things too).

Derek :)

My mum's cousin has a greek restaraunt in manchester,
they do authentic food,
I have found their site and their menu...
http://www.kosmos-taverna.co.uk/menu.htm
They make awesome food, so I am guessing the food in Greece should be just as good if not better.
Here are some of the dishes I have loved, I guess they will be called the same in Greece:
Kleftiko
Kodopoulo Methismeno (drunken chicken!)
Dolmathess

You can tell I am a meat fan!
The beer is also really nice,  Mythos and Keo are grrek I believe and very fresh tasting.

Hope this helps

You've never visited the Med then Derek?

As well as Chillis helpful bits n bobs, I hope these sites might be of some help too?  Not only do you get to see what the dishes contain but there's also the opporunity to follow the recipes - maybe try some before you go and see how you like it?

http://www.faliraki-info.com/food/

http://greekfood.about.com/

Hi Curry I thought you might have gone to India, still, done about 5 or 6 of the Greek isles love :-* the Greek food , stifardo, kleftico and moussesaka. (Take no notice of my spelling.) Crete was one of my favourites, the owner of the apartments took a crowd of us out for a meal, he walked past all the flashy looking tavernas, and we sat down at a nice but basic looking one with no English menus , he soon sorted that out, well everybody was Greek there apart from our crowd he said he was ordering big pork chop but I thought I would like something a little more traditional, but no I had the chop it was massive and the best sweetest chop I have ever eaten  :P, so my tip is try the tavernas where the locals are eating learn a bit of their language and your home and dry. ;D ;D ;D ;D

Yeah I forgot Keo lovely drop. :P :P :P :P ;D ;D ;D

well I will certainly learn a few words - thank you is the most important I believe ...

I am certainly up for whatever is available, I want to try and avoid the 'tourist' menus that abound whereever you go ...

Snails, frogs legs, squid, octopus, tripe soup, lots of ucky stuff, willing to give most of it a go, not keen on brains though ...

Baklava...so sweet and nutty
dolmades...fab stuffed vine leaves
Kalamari....so crispy yet tender
Houmos...so creamy, with lovely bready
olives olives and more olives
fresh almonds, freshly picked (in my case, by a gorgeous young Greek boy....I was smitten)
Feta cheese, preferably locally made, so salty, so good
Greek meatballs with lashings of bread and olive oil
Lashings of local honey

All washed down with Retsina...which tastes like pine scented loo cleaner  ;D

As you can tell, I have had some wonderful holidays on the Greek Islands......... 8)

A thread on food is always guaranteed to do well eh?

I will give the almonds a miss ... ditto on the honey ...

everything else sounds brilliant ... hmmm no one has mentioned patsas ...

Kleftiko...
is the only word you need to know,
oh yeh and...
KEO!

Has anyone else ever noticed that despite quite a few of the most famous Greek dishes being pork based you never see pigs in Greece? Where does the meat come from? ???. I have spent several months there in total and I have never seen one.

Hey growing Chilis! been to your mums cousins restaurant when I used to live in Manchester! greatfood! enjoy your holiday Curry! 

Biscombe
Wow its a small world, nice to hear it.
Did you enjoy it?
Loulla is the greek woman who runs it(married my mums cousin)
is really friendly and chatty did you meet her?

I have never noticed pork on their menu, but then that might be cos alll I look
for is lamb and beef..the good meats!

So long as you like chips, you'll be grand.

Seriously, i've been to greece loads of times, Skiathos, Thassos, Mykonos etc.. and you get chips with everything....chips, a small pile of rice, a few baby carrots boiled in a pressure cooker for 7 hours, a few tinned garden peas and slice of lemon - everytime...with everything....  ;D

Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes are nice though, try them. Also if you can, get roast spuds instead of chips - not sure how they cook them, sort of sliced, boiled, then cooked in olive oil for a bit (but not crispy) - they are nice  :P

I don't associate pork with Greek dishes, I'm trying to rack my brain thou.   ??? ??? :-\ :-\ ;D ;D ;D

I'd love to taste 'proper' stifatho (more a Winter dish though), skordalia (bready aolli), kokkorezi (more a Spring thing, offal wound on sticks with intestines of the lamb usually roasted outdoors at Easter), kataifi (sweet shredded wheat pastries) and scrumptious deep fried honey puffs, loukoumades.

When I lived and worked in Athens, it was considered very sophisticated to motor down to the coast on a fine summer's day to eat freshly caught small fish, prawns, and squid sizzled on outdoor barbecues or dipped briefly in flour and fried, served with greek salad, fresh bread and lemon juice. And yes, chilled white wine :)

They use mastic in baking, which is hard to find over here: 'mastixi' I think you pronounce it 'mas-tee-chee'. It comes in semi-translucent grains, like quartz, and gives a piney, fruity fragrance to home bakes ::) :P :-*

The Greek islands are great and the food is even better.
But if you still need to make a choice I advice you not to go to Zakynthos. It's a lovely island, but foodwise you will be disappointed.
It is taken over by noisy young Brits and other commercially grown tourists and the locals adapted the food to their taste. So everywhere you can get full English breakfast and pasta bolognaise and some 'authentic Greek food' like deep fried calamari, souvlaki and giros. And it taste all the same.

There was just one small restaurant that served traditional local food, including goat stew with tiny onions, stuffed aubergines and other dishes that do not sell well with picky youngsters. It is called Blue Marine. It sits at the coast at Laganas and provides a stunning view over the sea. Great sunsets.

However much you enjoy Ouzo with your meals, DON'T rush to bring some home. Like Genever, I find that it just doesn't work at home.

Squid gently stewed in its own ink makes a change from fried kalamari.

A little more about mastic from the Wikipedia site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastic
for anyone who's interested ;)
I really have got this biscuit thing bad! ::)