About Cyprus

Time to visit a TAVERNA

Eating out to catch some local flavor is always the high spot of a holiday, but where do you start when faced with the Cypriot menu at your local taverna.

In the course of your stay it is quite possible to try everything but why not order a Meze and taste all the dishes at one sitting.

Meze is short for Mezedhes, or little delicacies, and wherever you travel round the Mediterranean they appear in some form or other. Share a meze in Cyprus and you have tasted the true flavor of the island, for you may be served anything up to thirty (30) dishes. It is a complete meal, but, beware, do not be tempted to finish every dish that arrives on the table, or you may feel as though you've eaten for a week by the end! Just take a leaf out of a Cypriot's book and enjoy your meze 'siga siga' or slowly slowly.

Well, the decision has been made and your meze is ordered - what can you expect to eat? First come the olives, black or green, 'tsakistes' with a dressing of lemon, garlic, herbs, coriander seeds and oil.

Dips of tahini, skordalia, taramosalada and tzatziki arrive with a basket of fresh village bread and a bowl of salata horiatiki, village salad. Octapodi krasato, octupus in red wine, karaoli yahni, snails in tomato sauce, zalatina, brawn and pickles of capers, kappari and pickled cauliflower, moungra, are some of the unusual meze dishes that may arrive.

Bunches of greens, some raw, some dressed with lemon juice and salt as carrots and kohlrabi, and some tossed in oil and bound with egg may fit into your meze at this point. Fish of some kind could be next on the menu. Marida, tiny sardine type fish or barbouni, red mullet which are usually served very small, and kalamari or rings of squid are battered and deep fried, accompanied with chunks of fresh lemon.

Grilled halloumi cheese and lountza, smoked pork, come next followed by keftedes, meat balls, the popular seftalia, grilled pork rissoles and loukanika, smoked yprus sausages.

Now for the composite dishes or casseroles such as afelia, moussaka and stifado. Towards the end of the meal come the kebabs or souvlakia, the ofto kleftiko, meat baked in a sealed oven, as well as piecies of chicken, arriving straight from the grill.

But perhaps you are beginning to feel full now... No surprice - you've survived your first meze! Sit back contented in the knowledge that little else is to follow. Just some fresh fruit, carefully prepared and segmented and, well, perhaps just a few sugar dredged bourekia pastry filled with fresh curd cheese and honey.

Enjoy!...