Eurotrip Continued...

Cypriot Cuisine Continued...

One day when we decided to do some sight seeing, we wound up down near the water in downtown Paphos. My fiance's mom was looking for some fresh fish for lunch, and I was definitely on the same page. We found a restaurant called Theo's right on the harbor and we ordered some up. I ordered a fish known in the Mediterranean region as the sea bream. I had never had it before, so I decided to give it a try. We were served up some hummus and pita, as well as the Greek salad we were eating so frequently. I have a new found obsession with feta cheese since our trip because of it. The fish was about as fresh as it could possibly be. They served it with the head and tail still on it, cut in half with the flesh exposed. Some olive oil and lemon juice were all that were needed to enhance the fresh sea flavor of the fish. They have a fondness for serving "chips" to accompany meals in Cyprus. I believe that is because of the large amounts of British visitors. I definitely preferred the Greek style sides though. 

Two evenings before we left Cyprus we finally got to spend some time with the groom. He had been pretty busy taking care of his guests the entire time, but most of them had left, so we were able to head out and grab a bite and some beer Keos. There were tons of Greek Tavernas around, so we went to one with open air seating upstairs. The menu looked pretty tasty, and I wound up ordering something I had yet to have, a dish known as Sheftalia. It’s a type of crepinette, or a sausage without a skin that uses caul fat as a wrapper to baste and hold everything together instead of a sausage casing. The ground lamb and pork filling combined with the fantastic spice mixture was truly magical. 

We had heaps and heaps of kebabs while we were in Cyprus as well. Any kind of meet you can think of came on skewers in the form of kebabs. We had chicken, shrimp and lamb just to name a few. They are all cooked on the open fire and seasoned with traditional Greek flavors. Light seasoning, but enough flavor to make it very tasty. They are cooked on an open flame, so they always have a nice char to them as well.

We definitely enjoyed the food that we had while in Cyprus. We wish we had gone out on our own a few more times and looked for good food, because some of the places that were chosen by people that were supposed to know the area really weren’t that good. However, I love Greek flavors, and the freshness of some of the ingredients was really amazing. I never had so much flavorful lamb. I wish we could get lamb like that around here, but it definitely leaves something for me to want to go back for. Cheers!