Greece is wonderful in the summer, especially on the islands, but Athens isn’t bad either. I only had a couple of days in Athens, so I had to make some choices. I chose food and Acropolis.
The hotel was near Plaka, which is a historical area right next to Acropolis. It’s also a very touristy area, and I remember that I had some really bad meals, the last time I was there. It was 16 years ago (yikes!), and back then, I only had an outdated Lonely Planet guidebook and my gut feeling to help me pick the places to eat. This time, a quick Google search provided me with all the advice I needed. Thank god for blogs and cheap mobile data roaming!
On the blog Athens Walker I read a warm recommendation of a restaurant in Plaka called Scholarhio. Even though the review was from 2011, I was quickly convinced that this was where I would have my first meal in Athens this time. At first glance, Scholarhio seemed like any other Plaka restaurant. Most of the diners in the restaurant were tourists, and the menu was in English, but to my great pleasure, the food turned out to be really good. On top of that, the staff members seemed genuinely friendly and not too affected by the notorious peak season fatigue, so common in tourist-dense areas.
I was hungry, so I ordered all the Greek dishes I had been craving plus a couple of dishes I thought I might be craving in the future: Greek salad, tzatziki, moussaka, taramasalata (fish roe dip), keftedes (Greek meatballs) and saganaki (fried cheese). Everything was delicious except for the bread, which was a bit dry, but I only used the bread to scoop up tzatziki and taramasalata, so it didn’t matter much.
