Hines article on Tsalmpouris
- Thread starter peteypie
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Olympic Flame Restaurant. Here's some good gyros. The restaurant is owned and operated by two brothers from Greece, they would fix anything that Giorgios could possibly want. I have eaten there many, many times:
http://olympicflamedesmoines.com/
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Olympic Flame Restuarant-Des Moines
Excellent Greek food (don't forget the World Food Fair in the East Village starting today and also the Greek Food Festival each June):
http://olympicflamedesmoines.com/
http://stgeorge.ia.goarch.org/foodfair.htm
http://worldfoodandmusicfestival.org/
Excellent Greek food (don't forget the World Food Fair in the East Village starting today and also the Greek Food Festival each June):
http://olympicflamedesmoines.com/
http://stgeorge.ia.goarch.org/foodfair.htm
http://worldfoodandmusicfestival.org/
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Greek yogurt is actually served there and they do use a lot of fresh spinach, olive oil and phyllo crusts. But here is one I don't think is "good": kokoretsi is a delicacy made of chopped and grilled entrails of lamb or goat with onion, spices and olive oil. Regional variants can be very spicy.
This is good: Gemista are baked peppers and tomatoes stuffed with rice, onion, meat and spices. The meat and spices vary widely by region but often use beef, lamb, dill or oregano.
Unless you buy fresh bread from a bakery every European I know can taste the sugar (or HFCS as my name) in typical processed bread and it tastes bizarre to them. Asian people not as much because they have breads with sugar more often.
I went to Greece expecting not to really like the food but I absolutely loved it. As much as Italy and Spain which I loved and more than France.
Used to play hoops in Beyer with one of the brothers. Super nice guy, still remembers me after all these years.
Spent a semester in Italy, and while there - I went to Greece for spring break. Greek food was my favorite of all the places in Europe I traveled (Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Rep, Germany, Greece). When possible, I seek out the few, authentic Greek restaurants I can find here in WI/ the midwest. I'd eat Greek food more often if I could find it.
The closest things he's going to find in Ames itself are the Gyro man, Cafe Northwest (if it's still open?), and Pammel Grocery, which also sells some other products from that general area. However, the gyros served in most of America are still kind of different than what you'll find in Greece. They actually put fried potatoes in the ones in some cities in Greece - I don't think I've seen that too much in the states. In other cities, they actually put some mustard and ketchup in theirs. Speaking of which - put some Tabasco on your gyro. Really good with it.
I do agree though - real Greek food is better than most American food. It's also my opinion that 75% of the world's food is better than American food though. I do love a good burger, steak, and BBQ though (along with cajun stuff). He should make a trip here to Chicago. While the Greektown isn't massive anymore, there's still a lot of Greeks in the area - around 100,000 estimated. There are some great Greek restaurants (as well as a nice Greek museum). I'm sure there's a few semi legit places in Des Moines too.
I do agree though - real Greek food is better than most American food. It's also my opinion that 75% of the world's food is better than American food though. I do love a good burger, steak, and BBQ though (along with cajun stuff). He should make a trip here to Chicago. While the Greektown isn't massive anymore, there's still a lot of Greeks in the area - around 100,000 estimated. There are some great Greek restaurants (as well as a nice Greek museum). I'm sure there's a few semi legit places in Des Moines too.
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Since this thread seems to have become a discussion on Greek food, let me tell you about some foods I learned about in Armenia, both of which I believe are common around the eastern Mediterranian and Black Sea.
One was Boboki maruba, loosely translated as walnut preserves and more correctly described as green walnut preserves. A simple description would be that English walnuts are picked in mid June while they are still green and the nut has just started to form. The interior looks like a hard ripe nut, but it is still soft. The husk is peeled and the rest of the pith and nut are boiled in a syrup. I made some with brown sugar, cinnamon, and apricots. The tannins caused the product to turn brown.
My host family would sometimes give me one for. a small dessert treat. My enjoyment was increased because I realized the effort that would go into cooking it. I’ve made several batches myself and it is a lot of work. While I think my own product is a commendable effort, people sometimes take a small taste and set it aside. But they taste pretty much like you think a walnut soaked in a fruity, cinnamon syrup would taste like. At worst, not at all unpleasant and easily tolerated. Just a food foreign to our culture.
The other food was sort of a stuffed pepper, but wrapped in grape leaves rather than using pepper. Dolma in Armenia, but dolmathes at Olympic Flame seems to be similar. I experienced it with tomatoes Absolutely delicious.
Then there’s Turkish coffee, but it needs to be made by a mid Eastern grandmother for full effect. I wasn’t a coffee drinker until my host family offered a cup which I took to be polite. My immediate reaction was I had been given ambrosia. It was sort of like semi-sweet chocolate, but coffee flavored. The saying Is “Strong as hell, dark as night, and sweet as love.” There is a special brewing technique using loose grounds floating on the top of the brew in a special pot. You get grounds in your coffee that will mostly sink to the bottom. Don’t drink the dregs; pour them into you saucer and read your fortune.
Google youtube for some videos.
One was Boboki maruba, loosely translated as walnut preserves and more correctly described as green walnut preserves. A simple description would be that English walnuts are picked in mid June while they are still green and the nut has just started to form. The interior looks like a hard ripe nut, but it is still soft. The husk is peeled and the rest of the pith and nut are boiled in a syrup. I made some with brown sugar, cinnamon, and apricots. The tannins caused the product to turn brown.
My host family would sometimes give me one for. a small dessert treat. My enjoyment was increased because I realized the effort that would go into cooking it. I’ve made several batches myself and it is a lot of work. While I think my own product is a commendable effort, people sometimes take a small taste and set it aside. But they taste pretty much like you think a walnut soaked in a fruity, cinnamon syrup would taste like. At worst, not at all unpleasant and easily tolerated. Just a food foreign to our culture.
The other food was sort of a stuffed pepper, but wrapped in grape leaves rather than using pepper. Dolma in Armenia, but dolmathes at Olympic Flame seems to be similar. I experienced it with tomatoes Absolutely delicious.
Then there’s Turkish coffee, but it needs to be made by a mid Eastern grandmother for full effect. I wasn’t a coffee drinker until my host family offered a cup which I took to be polite. My immediate reaction was I had been given ambrosia. It was sort of like semi-sweet chocolate, but coffee flavored. The saying Is “Strong as hell, dark as night, and sweet as love.” There is a special brewing technique using loose grounds floating on the top of the brew in a special pot. You get grounds in your coffee that will mostly sink to the bottom. Don’t drink the dregs; pour them into you saucer and read your fortune.
Google youtube for some videos.
Interesting post. Are you describing a Dolma straight up too (i.e. Yaprak Sarma), or something else? Definitely an acquired taste for many westerns. The best versions I've eaten had some sort of meat in it, steamed in a big pot usually with tomatoes, and served hot. Sadly many places in the states serve it cold.
I have to comment on the Turkish Coffee bit too. Funny enough, people actually think that Turkish Coffee is super popular in Turkey when in fact it's not. A lot of the coffee joints you see today are geared towards tourists who think this. In reality, tea is the most popular drink and Turkey consumes the most tea of any country in the world per capita - almost 3X more than the UK. If you go to the country and are looking to buy something semi "expensive" at a shop, they will sit you down, talk to you about politics, sports, etc and serve you tea while you do an interesting negotiation period probably over a not so short period of time. If you go to the lesser tourist areas, you'll see teenage boys running between shops with tea service. Per capita, they consume 0.4 kg of coffee per year, which is about even with Puerto Rico. I would put my money that people there even drink more Ayran per capita than coffee.
Funny enough, Greece and Armenia, two countries with not so great relations with Turkey, do not drink that much tea. Instead, Greece is in the top 20 countries with coffee consumption.
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