Breakfast Around The World, Part II (with coffee)

I wrote the first post with this name about Japan as a one-time thing.  But as our travels have continued and we’ve found ourselves waking up in various places across the world, I realize that we’ve hardly scratched the surface of breakfast diversity.  And, as you all have probably realized already, I’m a bit partial to breakfast.  So I think we’ll be bringing the topic back now, and probably a few more times, before the end of the trip.  Further, I’ve used my position as Executive Bloggess for OBA to slightly broaden the scope to include coffee and “hot beverage culture”, as well.

So let’s start with this: Athens is not a morning place.  First of all, dinner starts late.  I don’t think that we sat down for dinner before 8 PM any night we were there, and walking into a restaurant for dinner at 10 PM on a weekday seemed perfectly normal.  Secondly, Athenians don’t really believe in breakfast – unless you consider coffee and some concoction of butter-and-flour-and-air to be breakfast.

We didn’t sit down for a “proper” American breakfast (however you chose to define it: cereal, eggs, pancakes) the entire time we were there.  We didn’t have many nearby breakfast options, particularly since we were staying in a residential, rather than tourist, neighborhood.  Most mornings, we popped into a bakery en route to our first destination, and selected a pastry that served to fortify us for ~45 minutes.  But what they lacked staying-power, they made up for in taste.  I would say that these were some of the best, freshest breakfast pastries I’ve ever had. [Disclaimer: I don't usually eat pastries for breakfast, so it's not like I'm a connoisseur or anything.] We sampled a variety of items, from baked pretzel-like offerings, to fried donut-like goodies, to rich, buttery pastries.  But I didn’t have my very favorite until our last day.

Shortly, I’ll be sharing our itinerary for that last day.  But before embarking on any sightseeing adventures, we popped in to a bakery.  With my digestive system back in order, I decided to indulge in a chocolate chip croissant.  It came out of the bakery case still warm, and its center section (minus the horns on each side) was as big as my fist.  I took my first bite and knew I was in for a treat.  The outside was crispy and the inside was soft and chewy.  I got chocolate chips in every bite – enough to satisfy my chocolate tooth, but not so many that they masked how good the pastry itself was.  When I tried to pull a piece off, it unrolled and unraveled in light, thin sheets.  Eating such a creation for breakfast felt…positively decadent.  But it was so fantastic, all warm and fresh and sweet and melty, that I couldn’t even bring myself to save some for later.  In retrospect (we’re three weeks past this now), I can tell you that this remains, hands-down, the best breakfast pastry that I have enjoyed on our trip. 


We were eating and walking, so unfortunately, there's no photo. But I can assure you that, as photogenic as that croissant was, it tasted three times better than it looked.

Occasionally, we’d supplement our pastry with a stop for coffee.  Now, while they may not consume any actual food, Athenians will happily linger with you over coffee – in fact, their visits to a coffee shop rarely last less than an hour.  Offerings include Greek coffee, which Kee-Min has previously discussed (here), or an espresso/espresso drink.  Such drinks may have different names from their American counterparts, but the contents are the same: espresso, water, milk, and foam – in some combination.  The menus, or waitstaff, can help you sort things out.  There’s also the infamous and incredibly popular frappe (instant coffee, sugar, water, optional evaporated milk), a concoction that appeared to be tremendously popular with the locals, despite the cold snap.  [New Englanders, I know this is not what you call a frappe. I'm sorry.  But please don't have a canary, and we are not making this blog a forum for frappe debates.]

But a word to the wise: Don’t ask for your coffee drink “To Go”.  Greeks do not eat on the run/walk/stroll/meander.  We seldom saw people with any kind of travel cup, and they certainly do not walk down the street munching granola bars, ice cream cones, or even - contrary to what we may think in the US - gyros (which are eaten, of course, but always sitting down at a restaurant).  

The Greeks are definitely a people that believe in connecting with friends and family over food, and they are sure to give both elements ample time and attention.  

And really, when you think about it, isn’t this how life should be??