Quite Curious

My goal: to eat my way from one end of the Greek Festival to the other. I love Greek food. I love it so much, I put this festival on my calendar a year ago, and I’ve been anticipating the dolmas, gyros, and baklavas since then.

Maybe the ancient Greeks invented the Olympics to work off all that Baklava.

Greeks know how to party. I went to Greece some years ago, and I remember how happy and relaxed everyone was - eating late, chatting to neighbors, lounging by the ocean - and it was only Tuesday. Sigh - I could use that anyday now. I was hoping I could relive some of that experience by going to the festival. While there’s no stunning view of the Aegean Sea, the sound of Greek polka and the smell of lamb roasting brought me back.

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Audience members would form a circle on the dance floor, holding hands and dancing to the music. As the music gets faster and faster, so would the dancing. It was fun to watch! This man in the middle of the circle stole the show.

The food!

We had to buy these tokens to buy food. We ended up using 17 of them. Not bad for great food and lots of water (it was 95 degrees).

This is a dish called “Flaming Cheese”. The cheese is called Kefalagraviera and has a high enough melting point that you can grill it. The flame was from a liquid they poured on the griddle (oil? water? Not sure).

This is another type of cheese that has a high melting point. While I haven’t heard of Kefalagraviera cheese, I’ve heard of this one, which is called Haloumi. I can’t tell you what it tastes like because by the time I got to this booth, I was stuffed.

Here’s Mike’s gyro. I was expecting gyro made from shaved pieces of compressed beef/lamb like on the streets of Greece - but this was actually spicy sausage sliced and cooked on a griddle.

I was waiting for one of these. It’s not a Greek party until you have a lamb on a spit. Although, I think it looks like a kangaroo.

So much Greek food - I wanted to buy it all. One of the things I love doing is browsing different ethnic grocery stores, and experimenting with what I find.

Pastries packaged and ready to take home. They strategically placed this booth at the exit of the festival. I didn’t buy any but I’m making it a mission to try each and every one of them eventually.

Loukoumades

Oh my goodness. Loukoumades. What can I say - they’re similar to doughnuts except they are smaller, flash fried, coated in honey, and sprinkled with cinnamon and ground walnuts. These are better than doughnuts. These have a crunch on the outside, but the same elasticity on the inside, and the sweetness of the honey beats frosting and sprinkles any day. We had these fresh, which I think, is the only way to have them.

The dough is very sticky and elastic. I didn’t get the chance to see how this was made, because there were runners coming in and out of the kitchen, supplying the outdoor cook with huge batches of fresh dough.

The fryer was set to a very high heat so that it was constantly bubbling. The cook would fill the vessel with a new batch of dough, and turn the crank on the site to deposit small, ovals of dough into the oil. And because it was so close to the oil, there was very little chance of the oil splashing (ouch).

A second tray is put on top of the loukoumades, to submerge them into the oil. They are cooked for just a few minutes.

Shaking off the excess oil (sorry for the blurry picture. I tried.)

Look at that! Perfection.

The loukoumades are scooped into a bowl and handed to a woman at the front, who scoops two ladles of honey into it.

Serving the loukoumades. These are ready to eat, unless you want ground walnuts and cinnamon sprinkled on top (uh, heck yeah…)

Sprinkling on the walnuts and cinnamon.

So good, so good, so good. Crunchy on the outside, gooey in the middle. And if you’re lucky, you get two of them stuck together. Oh, baby.

Mike liked them. A lot.

The dining hall

There was a dining hall where people could buy their food buffet-style, and avoid eating outside in the sun. All the dishes were prepared in the kitchen, as most were baked or stewed.

Serving the guests.

My food being served by a cute little old lady.

Dolmas! I had to some to try. They were much different than mine, mostly because they contained meat (I didn’t know that), had a roux-type sauce on top, and was cooked until very soft.

This was something called Mousaka. The sign said it was eggplant but it turned out to be 10% eggplant, 80% beef, and 10% Stuff. I couldn’t identify what the Stuff on top was - maybe cheese or flour? I ate it anyway, and I don’t even like beef. It was delicious. It was lasagna on crack.

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Oakland Greek Festival Website | Follow them on Twitter