33: The Menu Says it All

Last weekend I went out with a friend for, what we planned as, a quiet drink. After allot more thought that we should have actually given the issue, I told my friend "you decide", after ofcourse sucking up a bit "you know all the beast places anyway!"

He came back with "lets go to 33, seems fair as it's in-between the two of us." For those of you who don't know it aleady, 33 is named after the fact that it's housed in an area 33 meters squared. Some might be able to imagine a bar fitting in that space, but the supising thing is that they do food too! Unfortunately we weren't there for the food which meant I was drooling as fresh salads and piping hot pizzas went by me onto the table next to us. And for a place this size, that was too close to me for comfort. I wondered if I could grab a piece of pizza without anyone noticing. Luckily we hadn't had any drinks yet or I might have lacked the self awarness, so easily stripped away by alchohol, to try!

I hadn't been to 33 before but I sure had heard some positive reviews on it, including my friend claim that it hosted the best cocktails he'd tried (this it turned out, was a claim made after trying a grand total of one cocktail!) We sat at the bar, metaphorically speaking, because there wasn't actually a stool to sit on as the place was full from the ten people that were already there.

I was surprised that the cocktail menu was only a laminated list of no more than ten cocktails. My friend told be that they'll do anything even if it's not on the menu. I went for the Margarita. It's my benchmark drink which I always go for when trying new places.

I watched the guy making it and immediately realised I wasn't going to be happy. It turned out that, in the absence of other instructions the default Margarita was a frozen Margarita. Sigh. I understand that many like this Margarita slush, but for me, the perfect Margarita is shaken with ice and served without it in a chilled glass. And even that aside, I wasn't too fond of it. I got a stronger alcohol kick that a savoury sour one from the lime and salt. Oh well, onto round two.

From my experience of the pretty good array of cocktail bars now available in the centre of Athens, I knew that one way to get the perfect cocktail was to have a chat with the barman. I can recall numerous conversations with various barmen at Baba-au-Rum regarding my taste - always directed by them: bitter, sweat, savoury, sour, spicy, aromatic, strong, mellow... the list goes on. And at the end of it: "And if you don't like it I'll make you something else!"

So we asked the barman what he recommended. He answer was short but very revealing - though I'm not sure he'd be happy with what I took from it. "It depends on what you like. You should take a look at the menu." That would be the menu with the ten cocktails on it, and nothing remotely exciting on it at that. We went for the Long Island Ice Tea: better to be drunk than disappointed.

By the time we were done with that, the ten people have gone down to five, and we decided to move on to another place. That place was The Speakeasy Bar No.31 in Halandri, and that story is another, very different story!



Further Reading:
http://www.queen.gr/Pop-Culture/Events-Exodos/item/830-Multi-snack-bar-sta-Brilhssia
http://www.athinorama.gr/clubbing/data/places/?id=10000513
http://el-gr.facebook.com/pages/33-τετραγωνικα-μετρα/15855935752095
http://www.madamefigaro.gr/content/fun-se-33-tm
http://www.in2life.gr/delight/goingout/articles/207141/article.aspx
http://www.dailysecret.com/secrets/mystikos-ari8mos-33/

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Nixon: A story of expectations and how something so right can go so wrong

Two, maybe three weeks ago, I had arranged to go to a short play with colleagues from work staged in the apartment just above our office. The play was called "ΦΑΚ ΛΑΪΦΣΤΑΪΛ" (Fuck Lifestyle) and it was actually very good and I really enjoyed it. Given that it started at 8:30pm and finished at 11:30pm we had time to kill before the show, and time for a drink after it.

Before the show, I was more than happy to visit Gazi College (which I've already praised), to have the mini burgers. After the show on the other hand we weren't sure of where to go. No sooner had we started considering options than we decided to visit a bar restaurant called Nixon. The amazing thing was that, even though Nixon is practically down stairs from our office, none of us had been there before. On my part, I had been meaning to go for the past four year! The reason: rumours of the best burger in town! (Yes, I know, we've heard that before; and I haven't even written about the burger at The James Joyce Pub yet!). Now, I need to emphasise this again: I had really been meaning to try the burger at Nixon for the past four years because it had come to my attention from more than one sources that it may well have the best burger in Athens.

View Nixon in a larger map

Unfortunately we were visiting for the Bar part as opposed to the Restaurant part, and either way the place was already packed and they said we needed a reservation to sit. We settled in the corner behind the door and were thankful at that: to be lucky enough to have found a stool and a bar top to ourselves. I went for the Margarita because I like trying common things in new places because it gives me good grounds for comparing (sort of like the Big-Mac Index). I was very happy that the waiter asked if I wanted my Margarita frozen or shaken and served without the ice: showed they knew how it's supposed to be. It was ok. After Baba au rum, no other mixed drink has been the same for me.

Rewind. While waiting for the drinks to arrive I started looking around at the place. It's actually very nice. It has a tall ceiling with a huge Art Deco chandelier that totally dominates the place, the bar has shelves full of drinks built into the wall, and the restaurant in the back has large leather seating that really suit it. I found a really great description with pictures of the décor here. I also took a few pictures:

The Chandelier

Booths with leather seating

Pictures on the wall

So, as I'm looking around I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, on the bar, waiting to be served, the sexiest looking mini burgers I had ever seen. I had to have them! I told the people I was with if they wanted to share. They refused, reminding me that we had already eaten. They desperately tried to make me reconsider out of what they said was a needless act of unnecessary calorie consumption, ultimately fuelled by an underlying dissatisfaction with my job. A attempt, they said, to fill a gap in my life using the wrong means; something about Freud. I called the waiter and ordered the mini burgers. They had to be mine.

As I waited for my babies, I peered over the DJ in front of us to see a small frame with a picture of Nixon and Elvis Presley. So I made the connection: American President, Elvis Presley and Burgers. I really felt that these burgers were going to be the real deal. And they were. Nothing like the mini Burgers at Gazi College, which aren't really a mini version of a larger burger (tasty none the less), these were truly bite size versions of real burgers. They had an intensely smoky charred taste, juicy and textured patty, crispy bacon, wonderfully right caramelized onions on top. Spot on!

As I'm eating, I look over to the tables, and I see a guy who seems to be having the full size burger. And he just seems to be eating and eating and eating, and I think to myself, 'Daddy burger must be one huge daddy of a burger'. And this is important. A burger isn't some posh gourmet dish. It is a decadent, wholesome, savage meal. Something that you have to eat with your hands, and sauce drips all over the place, and you get into a mess because its almost impossible to sink your teeth into it. You have to feel the weight of the meat when you pick it up to eat. Sure, you can make a patty with kobe beef fillet mince and have black truffles, buffalo mozzarella and rocket, but that is not a burger as far as I'm concerned. That is a sandwich at best! The art of making a burger is making a satisfying hearty meal out of simple cheap ingredients!

Fast forward two weeks into the future, and a lot of nut busting on my part to get my burger eating friends to visit Nixons for a meal with me. It was a Wednesday and we usually meet up around seven, just the boys, to have a quiet weekday drink, a bite to eat and discuss the week so far. We had to wonder around until eight which is what time Nixon opens, at which point we went in and asked for a table for eight. We got two small tables put together. Now, I'm not one to complain, but for eight big men (and I don't mean old), and an empty Nixon, it was pretty obviously cramped. We made a point of this, but were told that this is what they usually give for eight people. Where should I start? Customer service? Customer always being right? Clearly a place named after an American president with a totally Greek view on customers.

We all ordered burgers and had a couple of starters, so here goes:

Quesadillas 

Tortilla  Cones

Both starters were sort of a joke. To start, we ate them by hand because they had forgotten to bring cutlery. The quesadillas were nice because they were warm and the cheese melted and stuff. Similar to an expensive toasty. The cones were made from a crispy tortilla (imagine the texture of a tortilla left out to dry for a week), They were filled with a red pepper and cream cheese dip and they had a piece of chorizo sticking out. Now unless chorizo is supposed to be bland, this was a poor chorizo. The basil leaf; emmm; food styling is important, and if you're going to charge eight Euro for five bites they have to be well styled.

And finally the burger. Everything that I said about the mini applied. Because of the bigger size, we could also tell that it was perfectly cooked medium as requested. Unfortunately though, it wasn't the big daddy burger I had been expecting. The diameter was about that of a Mac-Cheese burger (ten centimetres, give or take). Obviously it was a bit fatter. This burger at twelve Euro was what I expect to pay in the more expensive areas like Kefalari, Psixiko, Kolonaki and Bouliagmeni, because I know that (whether I like it or not), my money isn't going to the quality or quantity of the ingredients but to paying the expensive rents that these place will have. But in an area where I look out the window to see heroin addicts taking their next dose, that's not what I expect to pay! More so when everything I've said about the burger applies just as well to "American Burgers", a wonderful burger delivery company in Glifada.

The starters, the burger, with that service at those prices in this area isn't because the food is that good, its because people are taking the Mickey!

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Dadas: Good on Paper.

Yesterday I visited a bar/ restaurant in New Penteli: Dadas. They don't seem to have a website, but here are some related links:

http://www.estiatoria.gr/product.asp?gid=903
http://foursquare.com/venue/13974259
http://www.athensmagazine.gr/portal/restaurants/businesses/3143
http://www.athensmagazine.gr/portal/restaurants/articles/1163

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It was cold night and I arrived late at New Penteli Square. Not knowing that I was late I waited outside Dadas for my company to arrive. Luckily they called me before it occurred to me to call them because they were already inside!

As I entered Dadas, the first thing that hit me was the warmth of the place. I'm not just talking temperature (though we were sat next to a wonderful, lit fireplace), but something about the lighting, the hum of people talking or the correctly volumed music called "sit down, get comfy and relax" to me. Apparently, (because we were sat in the first half), the space is split into the bar-y half and the restaurant-y half. One with louder music and more people standing up and the other with more tables and lower music.

Since the others had been already waiting for a while, I got immediately handed the menu. Two pages long, modern food items with very appetising descriptions! I eventually went for the Carbonara, which was more or less described as "Casarecci carobonara with pancetta, freerange eggs, pepper and pecorino". I thought to myself, these people has the description spot on. Emphasis on the egg, Pecorino instead of Parmesan which is often incorrectly used, pancetta instead not bacon and ground pepper. We also order an arugula salad, home made crisps and some sort of soufflé to share (I should know, but I was to busy thinking about my pasta).

The salad was very nice (and I always say you can judge a place by its salads). Makes me wish I has paid more attention to what was in it! The crisps were also great (not to say much can go wrong in thin slicing and deep frying potatoes). The soufflé was ok: a baked cheesy floury mixture. And now the pasta... (deep sigh...).

The pasta was Linguine instead of Casarecci. Nothing remotely eggy, peppery or cheesy about the pasta. The pancetta I can't complain about. I could see loads of it and there was a thick layer of fat from it on the bottom of the place and all over the pasta (and that's the best case scenario. The worst case would be that it was butter from buttered pasta!). Unfortunately I couldn't taste that either (although it did remind me a bit of the bacon in bacon cheese sauce they put on chips in TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays and the lot) - I do wish they'd put in the effort of browning it first.

I'm not saying I wouldn't go there again (though its nothing to go out of ones way for): the other dishes looked good, and I heard no complaints (though the portions did seem on the lower end or 'large enough'). If they are good (which is what I'll be going to find) that would put the price to quality ration of the place in marginally acceptable territory.

What I am just saying is: change the menu or change the recipe!

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