Thursday, February 22, 2007

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Greece

Now that I've 5 minutes, here we are (oh, and you can, as usual, click on the pics to get a larger version).

The last VCN dinner was slightly more difficult to organize than the previous ones. On one hand, someone decided to pick exactly the same day to have a VCN carnival party (well, ok, it was fat tuesday after all), on the other hand, for the first time, I had to pick a restaurant without any external suggestions and with no previous first hand experience, or so I thought, given that eventually it turned out I had been in the restaurant I had chosen, even if a whole 10 years ago.

Anyway, my worries turned out to be unjustified, as eventually 19 people showed up, from Italy (5), US (4), France (2), Canada, UK, Philippines, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia (those two happily sitting next to each other), with only one person missing, making it one short of the number I set myself as the maximum.

The restaurant was small, cozy and even if not terribly atmospheric, it still gave the people a nice feeling and I must say the crew there was beyond praise as they dealt, first or all, with an unexpected number of vegetarians (I had signalled 2, when indeed we had three) and then with another couple of people changing their mind at the very last moment about the pre-arranged menu. Speaking of which, also the food turned out to be very agreeable, even if I made the bad mistake of serving myself of tzatziki twice before realizing it had cucumbers inside.

Time passed quite fast, helped by a very quick service and interesting talks. The ouzo (the typical Greek liquor made of anise) was not that great and mixed opinions were raised by the also typical white aromatic wine with pine's gum.

To make things even better, the final bill was not that expensive (for an ethnic restaurant in Rome, that is). So, I think I can honestly say, a very pleasant evening. Now, for the next time, we are heading to Africa... and once again I have no clue about which restaurant...

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