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Archive for Greek

San Fran – Kokkari

Feb21

Restaurant: Kokkari

Location: 200 Jackson Street (at Front) San Francisco, CA 94111. 415.981.0983

Date: February 9, 2012

Cuisine: Greek

Rating: Really fresh – transported me back to Greece

_

Yelp pointed me to this excellent San Francisco Greek place — that and I recognized it from the Zagat guide.


Close to Embarcadero.


Inside this is the modern Greek equivalent of a classy reinterpreted Mexican space like Las Ventanas in Cabo. Things don’t really look like this in Greece, but maybe they ought too.


Case in point.

The menu. It’s mostly traditional fare, but the Greek names have been dropped.


Pretty plates that match the decor conceptually.


“Cheese Pies – traditional feta cheese filo pies.” SPANAKOPETA, but particularly artisanal versions.


And same goes for this “Tzatziki.” Not only was it great, tasting of fresh dill and garlic, but the bread was superb and very very Greek. The marinated vegetables were also a nice touch.


“Saghanaki- pan fried Kefalograviera with lemon & oregano.” Melted cheese! I was just bummed it didn’t come out on fire!


“Kokkari Salad – mixed baby lettuces with shaved apples, beets & candied walnuts.”


“Moussaka – traditional casserole of spiced lamb, eggplant, potato & yogurt béchamel.” I love this traditional dish.


And this was easily the best I’ve had in the states (I’ve spent months in Greece). You can see the meat there and it had that lovely cinnamon / nutmeg thing going on which pairs with the rich béchamel.


And on the plate.

Kokkari was a great “find.” In truth flavors are rarely even this pure in Greece, although there was this one restaurant I ate at on Rhodos that was very similar.

For more San Francisco dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats: Taverna Tony
  2. Zaytinya – East made Easy
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Greece, Greek, Jackson Street, Kokkari, San Francisco, Tzatziki, Zagat

Some Ideas Never Die

Dec14

I was back at my parents for the ThanksGavin and I noticed the magazine cover to the right sitting in their powder room. This ceramic dog head, it turns out, is an late 18th or early 19th century British object called a Stirrup Cup. These popular objects were used by aristocratic gentlemen and ladies for the purposes of libations (getting drunk) while hunting. They were ordinarily gifts the host offered during the fox-hunt, on the occasion of the final drink, usually containing port or sherry. Now this in itself is normal enough — considering the British — but for me as a History geek I was stuck by its resemblance to the object on the left.

This little fellow, which is known as a Rhyton, is Greek. Probably Apulian from the look of it, meaning made by Greek colonists in the boot-shaped part of Italy, somewhere roughly in the 4th or 5th century BC. 2200 years before.

So what? But I love this stuff. A Rhyton served the exact same function as the Stirrup Cup. You drank from it while hunting. In the case of the Greeks, undoubtedly wine. The lefthand example is typical Athenian-style glazed terracotta.

But the Greeks didn’t invent this form. It’s much older still, of Persian origin. Here are a trio of Persian horns from three different periods of Ancient Iranian history.

The lion in the upper left is Achaemenid, the Empire of Xerxes and Darius, featured as the villains in the movie 300 (boo hiss), and conquered finally by Alexander the Great. This specific vessel (or one like it) actually makes an appearance in my novel The Darkening Dream, as my 900 year-old vampire al-Nasir owns one. He’s partial to gold. And things owned by kings.

The stag is from Parthia, in North East Iran, and probably a bit later. You can see the more dramatically accentuated horn shape here.

This lovely little bovine is Sassanian, the later empire that existed in Persia during the late Roman period and prior to the Islamic conquest. This is the setting for Aladin by the way — more or less.

This form may be extremely ancient in central Asia, possibly going back for millennium and animal shaped drinking vessels have been found from as early as 5000 BC! Horns were probably in use as drinking vessels in the region since Neolithic times or earlier, and terracotta replicas could easily be 10,000 or 15,000 years old.

But how did it end up in Greece?

The Greco Persian War of course — again the subject of 300. Many of these were captured, and the Greeks took a liking to them. So they minted out all sorts of Hellenized versions, usually in terracotta, as this was the typical material for Grecian drinking vessels.

The resemblance is a bit more than coincidental. Athenian pottery in particular was immensely influential in the entire Hellenistic and then Roman world. These vessels remained in use, modeling all sorts of animal flavors from the 5th century BC until the late Roman period (and possible later), circa 3rd century AD.

By the late Roman period the influence of such things such things were undoubtedly well installed in the mindset of many people as part of hunting and feasting traditions. So therefore we find things like this.

These gold examples, in clear imitation of the Greek forms, were found in a hoard in Bulgaria. I’m too lazy to really research it, but I would suspect they are from the Bulgarian kingdoms of late antiquity. They could be earlier, possibly even Hellenistic.

So what happened to the Rhyton during the long dark period of Europe’s middle years. I tried to find out (casually, using only Google). Drinking horns themselves were in great use, particularly among Celtic and Germanic groups. Some retain animalistic features like.

This is not as obviously derived from the same prototype, but certainly could be. Undoubtedly the functional object, the hunting horn vessel never went away. But by the 18th century, particularly in Britain, the Stirrup Cup appears and with it full and intense revival of the ancient form. Is this due to continuos conservation of the form and idea through the entire Middle Ages? Probably not, but more likely reflects a deliberate harkening back to the classical era. All sorts of neoclassical trends were at work during the 18th century. Stylistically the three great trends of this era were: Neo-classicism, Rococo, and Chinoiserie.

This rabbit and fox are clearly the same idea. Like the Greeks before them, the British, with their own thriving new ceramics business, chose the medium of pottery.

Above is an early 19th century example in the Medeval Revival style that is clearly aping the older chicken legged drinking horn, if not the orginal prototype.

The British template made it across the shores to America in the above example, being particularly Southern. I’m sure these were quite popular with the Gone with the Wind set.

And finally, persists even today, in an over-commercialized red-neck variant.

By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: History
Tagged as: 5th century BC, Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great, Athens, Darkening Dream, Drinking Vessels, Greek, History, Iran, Middle East, Persia, Pottery, Rhyton, Roman Empire, Stirrup Cup, Wine, Wine Vessels

Quick Eats: Taverna Tony

Dec10

Restaurant: Taverna Tony

Location: 23410 Civic Center Way, Malibu, CA 90265, Tel: (310) 317-9667

Date: Dec 10, 2010

Cuisine: Greek

 

I have a weakness for Greek food. I spent big chunks of the summers of 1990 and 1991 in Greece, and a month in 2005. I know it isn’t always the fanciest (although in 2005 I had a brilliant modern Greek meal on the Island of Rhodos), but I love the flavor palette, particularly lamb and yoghurt. And Tzatziki, which I absolutely can’t get enough of. Here in LA our favorite Greek haunt is Taverna Tony. We haven’t exactly tried a zillion of them either, but Tony’s is fun.

The menu.

The serve one of the typical creamy greek spreads with their bread. This is one of the yogurt, garlic, eggplant, olive oil type ones. A guilty pleasure.

As big a wine snob as I am, I’m also a huge believer in drinking the local beverage. I actually like Greek wine. This one is a mainland wine made by monks, Tsantali Agioritikos. In my opinion the best Greek whites (I don’t really drink Greek reds) are from Santorini. If you want the really authentic flavor, go for Retsina — Tony has it — makes me remember my college summers in Greece, but not to everyone’s taste.

One thing about Tony’s, they have mega sized portions (to use the Greek). My wife always gets the “Vegetarian’s paradise” which is basically every dip and vegetarian appetizer known in Greece. It comes on two plates, the hot and cold. Don’t even think about trying to order an appetizer, or even a salad unless you have a lot of people. A partial list of what’s included is: Hummus, Tzatziki, Melitzanosalata, Tabouli, Spanakopita, Tiropita, Feta Cheese, Horta.

The hot plate of above. Spanakopita etc. You can see the ubiquitous rice and overcooked vegetables (I like them this way at Greek and Turkish places).


This is the “ROAST BABY LAMB KLEFTIKO, Baby Lamb, slow-roasted with Herbs, Garlic, Onions, Oregano – A House Specialty that melts in your mouth.” That pretty much says it all.

In case you couldn’t see the lamb itself well enough, here it is again!  Baah!

I always get a side of “TZATZIKI DIP  Fresh Yoghurt, Cucumber, Fresh Mint, Garlic.” Roast lamb is just not roast lamb unless slathered in Tzatziki.

It’s worth noting that the atmosphere is fun here, and they have very loud live Greek music. There seem to be an endless supply of families throwing some kind of big dinner’s with like 20-30 people at huge long tables laden with food — this also is very Greek. There might be better Greek food in town (if anyone knows please tell me), but I’m perfectly happy with my monthly dose of lamb, yogurt, and Greek wine.


You can see the band in the corner.


A giant table arrayed on the patio.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats: Coastal Flats
  2. Quick Eats: La Cachette Bistro
  3. Quick Eats: Pizzeria Mozza
  4. Quick Eats: Mon Ami Gabi
  5. Quick Eats: Piccolo
By: agavin
Comments (13)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cooking, Feta, Food, Grape Leaves, Greece, Greek, Greek cuisine, Greek wine, lamb, Lamb and mutton, Malibu California, Restaurant, Retsina, reviews, Rhodos, Santorini, side dishes, Spanakopita, Tiropita, Tzatziki, vegetarian, Wine, yogurt
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