Greek Food Festival 2010

One of the great local food traditions is the annual Greek Food Festival, hosted by a local Greek Orthodox Church once a year for a week in early May. My lab always gets together to pick a day to venture out to eat lunch at the Greek Food Festival. A bit pricey for a weekday lunch, but super yum.

All the classic savory stuff is there: gyros, moussaka, pastitsio (love this stuff--it's like the Greek version of lasagna), souvlakia (lamb kebabs), spanakopita (spinach phyllo pie), dolmanthes (stuffed grape leaves)... and some authentic-but-not-so-stereotypical stuff like fish plaki (baked fish with onions and tomatoes), souzoukakia (meatballs in tomato sauce), oregano chicken, tiropita (cheese phyllo pie).

And there's a whole separate section for pastries. Just for pastries. Like baklava, diples (fried pastry sprinkled with honey and walnuts), galatoboureko (my favorite--custard baked in phyllo), kataife (ground nuts and cinnamon wrapped in a nest of shredded phyllo), and loukoumades ("honey balls," crunchy donut hole-like puffs soaked in honey syrup and cinnamon). And that's only part of the pastry menu.

So I had to take Michael back for dinner before the week was out. We got there during a very busy time, so we decided to get take out and eat at home. Here's what we got:

From left to right: spanakopita, pastitsio, souzoukakia. All yummy and delicious.

Oregano chicken over rice pilaf. Flavors were good, chicken was overcooked. Rice pilaf rocked--buttery and flavorful.

Souvlakia. Lamb was quite tender, very delicious.

Honey balls (loukoumandes). OMG. SO GOOD. Crunchy and warm, dripping with sweet honey syrup, fluffy and soft inside, fragrant with cinnamon. Completely addictive.