We got up and out of our room slightly later today – we were on the sun beds by about 10am. I couldn’t be arsed with breakfast and had a vanilla milkshake instead. I carried on reading the Lee Child book. The pool area was a bit busier today.
Lunch consisted of half a tub of cottage cheese, three thin slices of turkey ham and a pile of thin crunchy pre-toasted bread slices from out of a bag. Pretty standard fare for a quick self catering lunch – just missing some fruit or fruit juice – and I’m just not that hungry. Siggy had a cheese and ham soft baked bread thing, yoghurt and honey, and the remains of the giant apple from yesterday.
Halfway through the afternoon I changed my mind and went down to the shop for a Snickers ice cream bar and a peach iced tea. While I ate it I went for a quick stroll up towards the copyright infringement that is Ratatouille Taverna and then back up to the sun bed to finish Bad Luck and Trouble. I’m not going to do a separate post on the books I read during this cheeky week’s holiday by the way. I just did the one for the Lee Child book for no discernible reason.
Then Siggy and I went for an hour’s walk on the back road up the hill and had a look at the occupied house and the still empty shell next to it which had a good bit of street art on it. The location is featured in my book Broken.
On our way up we saw some big ass goat, a spooky scarecrow, and a lot of mopeds, quads and cars coming back from Megalos Aselinos beach. One mega-asshole on a quad bike shouted at us as he went past. Hilarious.
We went to Jasteri for dinner – this is a family restaurant bar on the main road in Troulos named after Jannis, Stavros and Erica which is new to us and next door to the woeful Zorba’s and across from the great Salt and Pepper.
It was great to see a once closed-down taverna open again. They had comfy chairs and blankets for those who might feel a bit chilly later in the evening. Beer on draft came in glasses marked as Berlin German purity law 1516. Referring to German purity seems like a bit of marketing blunder to me, but the beer was a good lager with interesting complexity to the flavour and a nice change from Alpha and Mythos.
Although we said we didn’t want the usual bread (given that we’d ordered garlic bread) we got it anyway. It came with some garlic butter and some olives. Then the garlic bread came and it was on a homemade base which was rather like thin focaccia and had cheese as standard. It was a better garlic bread than we had in Victoria in my opinion which was more like cheese on toast.
Jasteri had a separate bar area with tables so it was a little like Salt and Pepper in that respect. The traffic noise from the road was a bit of a pain. The difference with Salt and Pepper is that the restaurant area is mostly set back from the road.
Siggy’s moussaka had a good amount of meat and all the layers were in a good ratio to each other. Tasted to me like a good shepherds pie. The swordfish was big, juicy and meaty, just how I like it, with plenty of lemon juice squeezed over it. Also there wasn’t too much peripheral stuff and the rice was Italian short grain instead of the basmati rice I had with the beef at Victoria yesterday.
The place was pretty much full by the time we had finished which was a good sign. We were treated to yoghurt with glacé orange and honey along with the bill. The service was very attentive, polite and efficient, and I wish them luck with their business.
We then went about ten steps through to the bar area and had some cocktails (8 Euro) a Special Jasteri (made with Bacardi, Malibu, Southern Comfort, campari, banana juice, grenadine and triple sec) and a White Russian. I’m 99% sure the lady behind the bar used to run the now defunct Frog Bar. The White Russian was pretty feeble in that all she did was put some half and half, vodka and kahlua in a shaker give it a few desultory shakes and pour it out instead of layering it out over crushed ice. Siggy was a bit disgruntled. The Special cocktail was like the kind of thing you mix up at a party from all the leftover drinks. It was pretty awful. Maybe we’ll stick to the nice beer if we come again.
‘We’re going to need a bigger boat,’ said Siggy and pointed out a local chap who looked like Robert Shaw playing the old sea dog Quint in Jaws. It was a classic opening shot to this holiday’s celebrity lookalike competition. We’ll see if it’s got legs this week.
We had a couple of lemon Radlers in Victoria, spotted David Guetta, bypassed Tiffany as there was that blonde chap with the guitar – who murdered a load of Queen songs a few years back – murdering Tina Turner, and went to the sports bar to see Greece versus Belgium. it was rather warm and empty tonight. Sure it will be busier for the England game tomorrow. Among other drinks, we had a Blue Lagoon (Siggy) and a Jungle Juice (me) with some more stale Bugles and excellent mixed nuts.
Greece lost 2:1 in a match that got far more interesting in the second half. Belgium scored, Greece equalised and then Belgium scored again all within the space of ten minutes.
couchmagpie 