EuroTrip 2013...

Cypriot Cuisine

Last summer I took a trip with my fiancé and her family to Cyprus, Germany and Austria for two weeks to see her cousin get married. We had quite a trip trying to get there. We had to leave on of my buddy's weddings early in order to leave in time to make it to the wedding in Cyprus. We wound up leaving late from Philly, missed our flight in London, had hours of confusion in London before finally booking a flight to Vienna, spending the night in Vienna and arriving in Cyprus the next morning, only to have to drive to the other side of the island for the wedding and making it to the church as the ceremony was beginning. Tired just from reading that aren’t you? Haha Well that being said, we had a great time at the wedding and so began our six day stay in Paphos, Cyprus. We spent a lot of time with family and we drank a lot of beer. The local brews were known as Beer Keo and Beer Leon. Both were lagers, but Beer Leon only has malt, hops, yeast and water in it. Beer Keo on the otherhand was more flavorful and reminded me a lot of pilsner by its taste. We drank a lot of it; with every meal, all day each day we were there. 

The food we indulged in while we were in Cyprus was very Greek in its nature. The cuisine on the island is a basically an adaptation to Greek cuisine, so we ate a lot of traditional things you would expect to eat in Greek cuisine. After the night of the wedding, we spent a lot of time hanging out with family and friends. We had a lot of meals with them, and almost all of them were at restaurants that had Cypriot cuisine. The first day we were starving in the mid afternoon, but we didn’t have dinner plans until later, so we drove up the street to a local bar and had some bar snacks and a few Beer Keos. It was incredibly hot in Cyprus the entire time we were there. The weather was pretty much the same every day, brutually hot. Its not the hottest temperature I have ever been in, but the proximity of the island to the equator made it feel even hotter than the temperature was. We ordered some appetizer plates that came with a bunch of local meats and other traditional Greek dishes. The platters contained lamb chops, Cypriot sausages called loukaniko, souvlaki, smoked pork tenderloin called lountza and minced meatballs called keftedes. That all came out after our generous helping of their version of hummus, tzatziki and taramosalata or fish roe dip. I came to notice that the hummus was a bit different here. I never really noticed before, but everyone's versions are different. This one had a lot more tehina in it than others I have had. With pretty much every meal the entire trip, we were served a traditional salad that had cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and feta in it, and then seasoned with oregano, lemon juice and olive oil. It was a ton of food, but we were many so we ate it all in mere minutes. I actually think this was one of the better meals we had in Cyprus. 

Many of our meals consisted of similar items. On another occasion, we went out to dinner with my fiance's German family, the bride and groom and some friends of theirs from the wedding. We had a great time, shared some laughs and some pretty delicious food. My fiancé ordered the moussaka, a traditional Greek dish that is layered egg plant with minced meat and topped with a béchamel sauce. It was really quite delicious. It was Greek comfort food at its finest. My meal that night was also very tasty. It was a lamb dish known as kleftiko. It’s a lamb dish that is cooked low and slow in the oven to the point that it falls off the bone. It was incredibly tender and flavorful. The lamb that we had all trip was very affordable and very delicious, definitely a noticeable difference from lamb here in the States. We finished off our meal with a tasty serving of baklava. If you have had it before, it is a dessert made with phyllo dough layered with chopped nuts and honey. This was a delicious rendition of the classic dessert and a great end to a very good meal.

To be continued...