The photo above was taken Tuesday May 28th. It’s the Robinson Taverna at Koutsouras, Lasithi, Crete, not twenty minutes along the coast from where we live. It’s only taken us nearly five years to come across it, but boy was it worth it. We actually intended to eat at the restaurant next door, which is called Kaliotzina, but as we walked down the thirty metres or so of lane between the coast road and the sea front, there was a sign saying ‘Sorry! Closed on Tuesdays.’ The whole expedition could have been a disaster, but fortunately we decided to walk on down to the front anyway, and that was when we spotted the Robinson next door, and there were diners there, so it was obviously open for business, phew.

Here are a few shots of the (closed) Kaliotzina…

We decided to go there after I’d seen a few photos on a local Greek-speaking Facebook group, and it had looked so idyllic a setting that we had to go and investigate. Since the season’s now well under way we didn’t for a moment think that it would be closed, but there you are, it was what it was, I suppose. Frankly, although we’ll surely be going back to give the Kaliotzina a try another day, we were really taken with the Robinson, and even preferred the layout and look of the place. The only thing I couldn’t get my head around was why it was called the ‘Robinson.’ I mean, what kind of name is that for a very traditional Cretan eating place? Curious eh? I meant to ask the lady who served us where the name came from, but didn’t get around to it in the end. Next time I’ll be more diligent.

Here are some more photos taken while we ate a lovely, lazy lunch, while a turtle mooched around in the waters below us, occasionally breaking the surface to take in some air…

When I first set foot in Greece, way back in the 1970’s, island-hopping was dead cheap. Boat/ferry ticket prices were laughably low and you could simply amble on and off whichever ferry you wanted to use. When you found an island that you wanted to stay on for a while, you’d stroll off the ramp on to the quayside to be met by a plethora of locals all touting for business for their ‘village rooms’ or ‘studios.’ We used to love staying in ‘village rooms,’ where you’d have a shared shower room at one end of the hallway and a shared refrigerator at the other end. The daily rates were a pittance and you could spend three weeks drifting around the country, eating for a fiver a night too, and go home with half your spending money still in your back pocket.

Many’s the time that we came across some young person from Ireland, England or Finland who’d arrived on some island, got an unofficial job in a local taverna, and stayed for the summer. They’d go back to the UK to resume their University course in September. In the meantime they’d work in the kitchen, or clearing tables in exchange for room and board, nothing more. I mean, OK, it’s not good for the government to have to chase businesses to get them to pay their taxes, and there ought not to be exploitation of workers who may not have any rights if they work illegally, but still, those days were so good for the likes of us, who went to Greece to spend mere pennies on excellent food, watch impromptu displays of the local dances in any number of small traditional tavernas where they’d either break out the bouzouki from its case on a whim, or simply play a record on an old jukebox, but as the evening wore on and midnight came and went, what began as a quiet meal out turned into a rather good knees-up, where the draught retsina flowed from those little aluminium jugs and Ouzo was in abundance too.

I’m so glad that I got the chance to experience the Greece of the 1970s, but at least tavernas like the Robinson put me in mind of that era, when you could eat beside the sea in a place that, yes, OK, has some tourists in, but is not overrun by them. We actually enjoyed a really interesting conversation with the couple on the next table, who were from a small village near Frankfurt in Germany. They were called Stefan and Alexa (she’s heard all the jokes by now) and it seems that intellectually we had much in common. That’s Alexa in the photos by the way. They were the kinds of tourists that we used to be too, always staying small, concerned about the local economy and the environment in equal measure. And best of all, Stefan liked my kind of music, a double whammy. We talked 70’s prog rock for ages. The conversation only started because the lady serving us remarked on the turtle having put in an appearance and Alexa was “Wow”-ing when it broke the surface with its head. Needless to say we had to ask what was going on and thus the conversation began, they inviting us to share another carafe of house wine before we all paid our bills and retired to our beds for the afternoon (or what was left of it).

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Just before I close this one, I wanted to return briefly to Sitia and its restaurants. If you’re lucky enough to be going there some time, then I can heartily recommend a couple. We tried virtually all of the waterfront restaurants while we were there, and settled on a couple that we easily liked the most. A common general name for a restaurant in this region is a ‘Rakadiko,’ which I believe is a local term. We certainly never came across it in Rhodes or any of the other islands that we’ve visited over the decades, although having now done some Googling I find that there are ‘rakadika‘ as far away as Piraeus. So you’ll notice that quite a few call themselves, for example, ‘To Ρακάδικο του Αντώνη.’

OK, so we don’t eat meat, which means I can’t review the quality of meat dishes in these eateries, but when it comes to portion sizes and prices, there were two that stood out for us, and which we visited numerous times as a result. They were:

To Limani

Rakadiko Inodion (Οινωδείον)

Dishes we particularly enjoyed were the grilled mushrooms (Μανιτάρια Σχαράς) which were usually the Portobello type, sliced, very yummy. The word ‘s’chara‘ basically means ‘grilled’ by the way. The portion at To Limani is legendary. The fava was delicious too, and if you order a green (lettuce) salad it’s usually massive and contains a few other things like spring onions and baby tomatoes, all dressed in Balsamic cream and olive oil. The courgette rissoles were wonderful (kolokithokeftedes). The Limani does the best fasolakia we’ve ever eaten anywhere, and they also do gigantes, which isn’t always easy to find on a menu these days. A few of photos in this vein below…

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