(Here is a picture of a Young Ginger Donut - a year before the best meal of my life)
This is not technically about the best food of my life. If it were simply about the food, service, wine and having my taste buds blown out of my head – then that crown would go to Lake Road Kitchen, Ambleside; twice over, for meals I still salivate over now!
No – in fact I think this post should be re-named Best Meal Related Experience of My Life – but I somehow don’t think that sounds as sexy or interesting to many. But I am however going to tell the story because I love telling it and it highlights something that is often misjudged or dismissed.
"Great Food, Great Drinks, Great Dining Rooms come and go but Great Experiences last a life time."
Quote by me… (unless I unintentionally plagiarised it… then feel free to comment!)
Expectations (and in-turn experiences) are terrible things to deal with because they roll, pitch & yaw from one extreme to the other. A person may enjoy one thing a certain way, the person directly behind them will then hate it for the same reason the person before them loved it.
Delivering experience in whichever form, is in many ways, a losing battle and a curse but one worth having for this exact reason. Experience lives forever in that person. So the connection is intrinsically the most valuable part of what I [we] choose to do.
The year after meeting my girlfriend (who in a shocking turn of events decided to marry me and bear unto me an offspring) we decide to take a romantic holiday to Athens. Our first anniversary together, my first ever proper girlfriend and a chance to explore a city my parents had talked about for years.
The holiday was lovely – it was November in Athens; I firmly believe that Autumn charm is underrated and as a city this was obvious, not heaving with Summer tourists and you got a feel for what life for many outside of school holidays and peak holiday trade is really like.
This was back in 2007 – so no instagram photos really of exist of this holiday, step counts and trackers were but a distant nightmare. TBH (the better half) and I put in some hard yards in discovering Athens. A full trip around the Acropolis, ancient Olympic stadium and various temples and markets left us ready for a beer and nap by late-Saturday afternoon.
Wanting to head back to our hotel (3* deluxe; I’ll have you know. Nothing but the best for us…) we come across a yellow cab parked up with a man enjoying his paper and a coffee. Quick knock on the window and he throws it all down on the passenger seat to usher us into the cab.
His English is perfect, my Greek is not (unsurprisingly).
He makes charming chit-chat to what appeared to be a very beautiful young lady and her clearly outclassed boyfriend who had never seen an inch of daylight in his life… #pasteyenglishman
He makes a charming personal enquiry “Is it your honeymoon?” – we were both 22 at the time.
I answered a little too quickly “not quite yet” – we wait another 7 years before that happens; much to my Mother-in-Law’s consternation.
The chit-chat is about our holiday and what we have enjoyed, we cover our anniversary and how we met. The journey is only 15 minutes or so but weary walkers as we were, I enjoyed the conversation, TBH enjoyed the respite.
As we pull up to the hotel; the driver enquires,
“Do you have anywhere for dinner tonight?”
I’m blasé and cavalier in response;
“Was just going to find somewhere round here, after all its Athens and there is good food everywhere, I foolishly presupposed…
“This is not a good place to try, I’ll come back and take you somewhere nice. Does 8pm work?”
“Sure”
Still being green to the world and not really appreciating what was happening; I was convinced that this guy was never coming back and we would head out around 8:30 for a meal around the hotel.
We headed back up to the room – we fell asleep for a few hours and enjoyed the rest and relaxation of a full day, well-trodden and enjoyed.
By 7:30pm; ablutions carried out and smart-casual dinner attire thrown on; we enjoyed a drink in the room and then the phone rang.
Mr Bloomer (this greeting never gets old) – your car is downstairs for you.
Wow – he actually turned up, apprehension took hold. I wondered if we were going to end up in the shitest and tackiest place on earth. I wondered if we were going to be hoodwinked for hundreds of Euros I barely had or worse we were being kidnapped… but we step into the lift hand-in-hand, ready for the adventure.
Think it’s worth noting here – Maxine’s look of apprehension on her face was much greater than mine; there is no way that a single lady would get into an unknown car in the evening, to go for dinner. I maybe had never appreciated this dynamic until recently!
We are greeted at the lobby by the smiling cab driver, who is in a very nice shirt and pair of slacks; he opens the door of the hotel. I go to walk around a shining, black, full loaded Mercedes in front of the hotel to the cab behind it; the cab driver, gently points out the limousine is for us.
My face must have been a picture - never in my widlest dreams...
He opens the door for Maxine and then for me – we sit back and enjoy what I am imagining will be a car ride more expensive than the hotel room that evening; but I guess we were committed now.
OH F**K, went the inner monologue…
Weaving through the Athens night, we end up leaving what appears to be the city and we head through hills and climb through the dark night sky – whilst the car was beautiful and we were enjoying the surreal nature of it all I had started to feel very aware that people were disappearing at an alarming rate and we had no idea where we were going.
OH DOUBLE F**K, went the inner monologue
Google maps wasn’t available back then, collective gulps of worry hit us both hard and then out of nowhere we drop down into what appears to a village or town; the streetlights return and before we know it – there is a port appearing in the distance.
We wind our way to the waterside and roll through a busy(ish) street with sail boats and yachts on our left and lovely tavernas and restaurants on our right. We pull up in front of a restaurant which I could not realistically pick out of the crowd from memory but our doors were opened and ushered into the place.
We are then treated to a meal at the VIP Table; it was so wondrous I can still recall almost all the elements;
· Fat, salty and rich olives with warm bread, cold and refreshing tzatziki with garlic so intense it ripped your sinuses free with heat & olive oil that slapped you in the face.
· Spanakopita that crunched so loudly it could have been a gunshot and oozed sex appeal
· A groaning platter of fresh seafood brought to the Table for us to choose from and grilled over open charcoal - Prawns, Calamari, Sea Bream; all grilled with the simplest addition of salt, pepper & lemon.
· Greek Salad (obviously) that still to this day is yet to be surpassed, although this could be the rose tint of history…
· Potatoes fried in Olive Oil - need I say more?
· Tomatoes with Salt & Greek Basil and Oregano
· A bottle of Greek Wine that was actually good; having being burned numerous times historically. It was if memory serves me right it was a charming Assyrtiko.
· Baklava so sweet, soft and crunchy that the coffee was a necessity to offset the diabetes it almost gave me.
I imagine our driver may have had a deal with the restauranteur; he was introduced as a cousin {sic} BUT the more romantic version of this story is that actually he met two young people on holiday in his city and he took a chance that this would be a memory to never forget.
An act of capitalistic altruism that has informed my life of hospitality.
I hope I might be able to pay it forward one day, I will probably never know if I have succeeded but that’s the joy of the game, so to speak.
I tell this story – because the final bill (which included the "cab" ride was nowhere near the value of the experience. My wife and I wax lyrical about the feeling, the experience, the love we still share for that moment.
It made us feel special and the value of that is almost impossible to put a measure upon but what makes me really excited about this story is that one day someone else might feel about me the same way I feel about that cab driver.
A man who just wanted a young couple in love to enjoy a wonderful meal and never forget it!
We should all be so lucky, I know I am.
Much Love
Goose
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