The third day in Mani started with the breakfast at Areos Polis Hotel. It is a buffet and we served ourselves whatever and as much as we wanted. The most welcome was the coffee; both GH and I want a mug of coffee in the morning, but hotels usually do not server that much. Here we could pour as much as we wanted.
In the buffet, there was a bit of everything. Bread, fruits, scrambled eggs, fried bread, cakes, butter, home-made jam, honey, ham, cheese, cereals. The only thing which usually is but was lacking here was Greek yogurt (but neither GH nor I eat yogurt in the morning and we did not care).
I served myself with a fried bread, honey, a bit of egg, a piece of cheese and a piece of syrupy fruit cake. Excellent breakfast.
In the morning we drove to Itylo to see a monastery and then stopped at Limeni for lunch. Before arriving Limeni, we stopped at Neo Itylo which is situated by the sea. There we found open two tavernas (Ο Μάυρος Πειρατής- Black Pirate and Καραβοπέτρα - Karavopetra). We expected to find more in Limeni, but to our disappointment only one fish tavern, Takis (Ο Τάκης), was open. This is a problem of travelling Greece in the winter; whenever you go (except for the autumn & winter destinations like ski resorts or mountains, of course), we find many shops and restaurants closed.
Takis seems to be a quite famous fish restaurant in the region and is reputed to be expensive. So we ordered cautiously.
Taramosalata and broccoli.
Taramosalata was excellent and went so well with fresh bread. This was the only good bread we ate during our visit in Mani. In other places the bread was always stale and even grilling did not totally restore the goodness. I am not sure if it was because of the season (= few visitors) or the people there do not care much about freshly baked bread.
The broccoli was fine and I would like to mention that the stems were cleaned (i.e. the outer skin was peeled).
And fried fresh calamari ("fresh", meaning not-frozen). We ordered 300g., but I think it was less, because the charge was less (it should have been about 10 Euro for 300g., but actually was 8 Euro). I guess they just brought us one portion.
When GH saw this portion (small, according to him), he got restless and ordered also fried potatoes.
I have no idea why he think he must feel stuffed at restaurants. If we do not get stuffed, we can go for an ice cream or a cake afterwards. Or, we can eat dinner (you will know what I mean).
GH's worry turned out to be unnecessary, because one portion of garidomakaronada (spaghetti with prawns) was huge.
It was one of the best garidomakaronades that I have ever eaten. The spaghetti was freshly boiled al dente (it took quite a while for the dish to arrive and we understood why when we ate it). Prawns were large and fresh. It cost 17 Euro and absolutely worth it.
At the end, we were offered spoon-sweets of sour cherries.
The total bill came to 42 Euro, which I think was fair for what we ate. The environment was also nice. The service staff was not quite attentive (for example, when I asked salt for broccoli they brought us two peppers and afterward it was very difficult to attract their attention), but not tragically so. In summer, with more diners, it might get worse.
Takis - Ο Τάκης
Limeni, Lakonia
Λιμένι Λακωνίας
Tel. 27330 51327
GH was absolutely stuffed and he was almost feeling ill until the next morning (NOT poisoned by the food, he just ate too much). We had to skip dinner ... again.
But not wanting to stay at the hotel all the evening, we went out for a drink. In Areopoli there are 4 or 5 bars and they get quite busy in weekend evenings, even in February. We entered one of them and had a coke (2.50 Euro) and half-sweet wine (3.50 Euro).
It was a nice evening.
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