If anyone is thinking of going there, let me impart a few do's and don'ts:
DON'T go if you have eaten recently. Say over the last couple of months
DON'T expect a fine dining experience
...and a bottle of the '85 Montrachet my good man
DON'T go if you want obsequious waiters
...oh a wise choice sir
DON'T go if you are hard of hearing
I said LET'S GET TWATTED!!!
DON'T go if you want a candlelit romantic dinner for two
Christ it's cold. Can we go in before my nipples rip through this dress?
DO go if there are about 6 - 8 of you and you have loud voices
That can't be right. I only had the onion bhagis
DO go if you hold some sort of eating record
Quick! MORE NAPKINS!!
and finally, DO remember to wear loose clothing in the trouser department
Yes I think that might be a little TOO loose
I am allowed, by the missus, to go to Vrisaki about once a year. This is because it takes about a year to recover. So last week, my year's exile was up and eight of us went. For those new to the place, when you arrive you think you've made a mistake, as all you see is a bog standard Kebab House takeaway.
Persevere.
Go past the counter and suddenly you find yourself in a huge dining room, with many rows of tables filled with loud and enthusiastic patrons being served by a bunch of sweaty old geezers in waistcoats a few sizes too small for them. The waiters are mostly friendly but born before any notion of Customer Service was popular. The whole place I always think has the frenetic air of a Munich Beer Keller.
Anyway, we sit down and immediately order a) The Meze b) Retzina wine and Keo beer.
WARNING: do not attempt to order anything else. I have never ordered anything else, and so cannot give any details as to what the rest of the food/drink is like, but just take my word for it. The reason you (and everybody else) is there, is The Meze. This is the most extraordinary Meze you will have in your life anywhere. Ever.
So the first course arrives, and it consists of: taramasalata, Tzaziki, Hummus, olives, potato salad, beetroot salad, various bean salads (2 or 3 different ones). tabouleh, seafood salad, plus about another half dozen plates I cannot remember now, plus lots of warm pitta bread. There were about 15+ different dishes, and because we were 8, they brought about 3 dishes of every dish. In fact, there were so many dishes, they were, literally, balancing them on top of each other.
This is just mine
So you pile in: lovely freshly made stuff. Brilliant, and you just can't stop yourself overindulging, even though you know what is to come.
Next course: platters of seafood: prawns, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel
Next course: big piping hot grilled flat mushrooms with garlic butter
Next course: Ridiculously salty thick grilled bacon topped with grilled halloumi
Next course: Giant baked Mediterranean prawns swimming in garlic butter
You are now beginning to see double and wheezing a bit, but it keeps coming, and although you passed full up about four courses ago, it is all so good that you just keep going
Next course: Huge platters of deep fried Calamari with lemon
Next course: Some enormous, unidentified, whole baked fish
There could have been a few more courses after this, but I had by now lost the capacity for rational thought
And finally:
THE MAIN COURSE!!!!!
Although I must have been to Vrisaki in excess of a dozen times over the years, I have only ever been but vaguely aware of the main course and its constituents, so forgive me if I am a little light on substance here. It certainly consists of a large, feta filled Greek Salad. There is also huge platters of grilled meats. Certainly at least two kinds of kebabs. Plus some fat and multi-coloured sausage-type items, possibly Basturmas. Were the kebabs tough or tender? Well, they smelt OK, but to be honest, by this time, as my stomach pushed my diaphragm northwards into my lungs, I could only draw in short, shallow gasps of breath, and was unable to move any of my limbs.
Hence I could only waft a fork in the vague vicinity of the meat platter, and, rather like a sea anemone relying on passing edible detritus, hope that some meaty treat might find its way onto the end of one of my feebly waving tines.
Finally, finally it is over, but not before the sadistic waiter offers a fruit platter. WARNING: the fruit platter consists of MORE FOOD.
your usual fruit platter sir?
And as I was being loaded onto a forklift truck to take me home, I found myself thinking, Never Again!
But I know I don't really mean it.
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