What I ate in Skyros

It has been some time since the last time I posted. I was making pages on Gate to Greece website about Skyros where we went in early July.

Here I would like to show you some of the food we ate during the trip.

The first day we arrived, we went a bit crazy and entered an Italian restaurant called Marco Polo. The owner chef is an Italian and serves classic Italian dishes like pasta and pizza as well as some Greek and fusion dishes like these.

Here are devil's kebabs. The waiter tried to explain us why it was named so, but we did not really understand.

Judging from the texture of the meat, it was mixed with soda powder. This is a way to treat meat in East from Turkey to China, but not in Greece. I guessed it was inspired by Turkish Kebabs. They might not look good, but tasted pretty good.

And here is orange flavoured chicken tandoori. I don't think it was cooked in tandoor oven, but the chicken breast was treated with tandoori spice.

Unfortunately it arrived undercooked (the waiter told us that they mixed up the order and had to cook this dish in a hurry), so we sent it back to the oven. Regardless of the hiccup, it tasted interesting and I liked it.

This restaurant is relatively expensive for the island (the above dishes are 10 Euros each), but, if you get tired of Greek food (or even not), that is the place to go. I do not know the exact address, but it is located in the central square of Chora and it won't be difficult to find.

Our pension did not serve breakfast, so we had to go out to get something. This is an apple pie from a local bakery and we brought our bread to a nearby cafeteria. The pies and croissants were all right, if not anything noteworthy.

Here is a calorie bomb called "ladopita (meaning oil pie)" which is evidently a well-known local dish. Actually this sort of thing is eaten also in other places in Greece and called variously, but I have never seen it in tavernas.

It is really huge, about 30 cm in diameter. Typically it is eaten with a local soft fresh cheese called ksynotyri, which looks exactly like yoghurt. Depending on the recipe, the cheese might be already in the pie before being fried. On this occasion the restaurant was running out of ksynotyri, so we ate it with feta. The bread was very nice, but it wasn't anything I can eat with other dishes. However, you should try one at least once while you are in Skyros.

During the vacation, we eat the lunch so late that we cannot really eat dinner. Once we stopped at this souvlaki place called Mantzourana, near the central square. It serves pretty good souvlaki. It has also tables on the 1st floor terrace and you can eat souvlaki looking the people go up and down the main street.

In Skyros, the portions are quite large. These are biftekia served at a taverna Agios Petros on the road to Agios Petros Beach.

It is supposed to be for 1 person, but it could easily feed two.

On the occasions that we could not eat proper meal, we stopped at an ice cream place called Faltaina.

It has an interesting range of flavours and tastes good. This is another thing you should not miss while you are in Skyros. There is one outlet in central Chora and another shop/factory on the road just before entering Chora.

This was the last meal we had in Skyros, which unfortunately wan't good. On the last day morning, we went to a beach bar called Juicy in Molos beach. It is open from the morning and we had a savory crepe as snack. The quality of cheese was low and tasted bitter somehow.

It is a nice beach bar, but do not order savory crepe.

That is it about Skyros, but I would like to add also a baklava that we ate in Kymi Port of Evia.

Evidently Kymi is well known for baklava and there were signs everywhere (not so much in the port, but in the town). The upper crusts were very crunchy and the lower layers were gooey. We don't know if this is the typical balkava of Kymi as we ate only at one shop. Dried figs seem to be another famous local produce.

And to those who are wondering why we did not eat fish at all, I would like to inform that Skyros is well known for husbandry. There are fish restaurants, but the locals seem to eat more meat than fish. Particularly goats and sheep are local speciality.

So that is it for Skyros food. To be honest, except for the first restaurant Marco Polo, the food was not more than "good". Based on what I ate, I won't expect exceptional gourmet experience in Skyros.