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Speaking of beaches, the restaurant near by Elia Beach is absolutely delicious. I was at the beach every day, so I always had lunch there. It’s probably my favorite restaurant on the planet.
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Wow! |
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There was something about it, like they had the perfect balance. |
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What kind of things did you eat? |
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Salads, octopus, grilled fish, things like that. They seasoned them with olive oil, lemon, and salt, and that was it. It was delicious. |
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Sounds great. |
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I think Greek food generally goes over well with Japanese palates. You could bring a bottle of soy sauce and pour it over their grilled fish. |
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Wow, a carry-out bottle of soy sauce! Good idea. And they eat rice quite a bit, too, don’t they. I’ve seen bell peppers and tomatoes that were stuffed with rice. |
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Yeah, I had that too. Their ingredients are so fresh. When I went to Mykonos Town at night, I often went to a shop I liked, that we call the “Drawer Shop.” |
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The Drawer Shop? |
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Yeah, when you walk into the shop, they take you over to a refrigerator. They open the drawers, and each one is filled with fresh fish that they let you choose which one you’d like to eat. My friend calls it the Drawer Shop, so I’ve only ever called it that, and I can never remember the actual name. So I pick the sea urchin, and they spice it with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt, and it’s marvelous. |
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That sounds delicious! |
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I’ve tried making it in Japan, but I can never get it quite right. |
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I wonder what makes it different. |
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Most of the sea urchin in Japan is probably already pickled with alum powder. I’ll bet I could make something closer to it if it was in a jar with only salt in it. And the Drawer Shop also has a booth outside the shop where they cook really juicy fish—snapper, grunt, perch—and you wouldn’t believe how huge those fish are. |
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Sounds nice! |
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Don’t the bigger fish taste more bland? |
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They’re surprisingly tasty. But like I said, I can’t figure out where these fish come from. There’s absolutely nothing around the beaches. If you go in with a net ready to catch something, you’re only going to get sea urchins.
▲Sea urchins from the coast. They’re slightly smaller than the ones in Japan, and a little higher quality. |
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Even though there aren’t any in the beaches, there are always freshly-caught fish every morning in the harbor. |
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Why is that, I wonder. Where do they come from? Are they all offshore? |
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They must be. I wondered about that and asked one of the locals. They just said it’s easy to catch fish.
▲Freshly-caught fish are presented every morning in the Mykonos harbor. |
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So you’ve just gotta go somewhere else to get them. |
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I think so. There aren’t many, but there’s enough to feed the island. That’s why I thought the meat was so much cheaper there. So what else did you eat? |
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I love yogurt, and I ate buckets of it every morning. |
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Greek yogurt is a lot thicker, isn’t it? |
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Yeah, I like it a lot better than regular yogurt. I ate so much I worried whether it was good for me or not, but I’m sure it’s healthy. |
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They’ve started selling it at convenience stores here in Japan, lately. |
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Oh yeah! I had some. It was yummy. |
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And speaking of yogurt, I eat that famous “tzatziki” a lot. |
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Tzatziki is a paste made of a mix of Greek yogurt, shredded cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and dill. |
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Right. I make that at home, but I add a bit of cumin, too. When I go to a tourist spot, I don’t go for a long time, but my stomach gets tired of things. When I go to Italy, I get sick of pizza and pasta and all those carbohydrates. I can’t just keep eating all the time. And when I went to Malta Island, I had a hard time when they didn’t have anything I wanted to eat. It’s a British territory, and the food there was shocking. |
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Like what? |
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There was a pie completely filled with macaroni. |
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(laughs) |
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Carbs on carbs. |
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English food is pretty good if you eat it in England. Probably because the water there suits the food there. But eating English food somewhere completely different, and somewhere so warm, I’d rather make something myself. But Mykonos had all fresh seafood and vegetables, so it didn’t sit heavy in my gut. It’s the perfect place for me. |
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Was there any food in Mykonos you didn’t like? |
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No, I didn’t really experiment that much, so I haven’t found anything yet that I don’t like. Oh, but the bread wasn’t that great. That was a little disappointing. And I always ordered the cheap wine to drink with everyone. |
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Wine is cheap there, isn’t it? Sometimes cheaper than the juice. |
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Wow, seriously? |
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Seriously. It’s practically cheaper than water. |
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And it comes out in a cheap cup. |
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Yeah, I liked that. |
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There are always tables outside, and everyone eats out there. It’s nice. |
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Yeah, I love that, too!
▲The summers have great weather, and everyone eats outside. |
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That sounds great! Doesn’t it get dusty outside when you’re eating? |
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It is a little dusty, of course, but there aren’t any cars, so it’s not so bad. So the island really is like some kind of fantasy. (laughs) |
