In Which We Eat Some Fishy Dishes

The place was deserted which we really should have taken as a sign to keep on moving, but then again, John and I have yet to figure out the generic Greek hour for lunch, often finding ourselves venturing out to seek food when everyone else is occupied elsewhere. So we sat down, checked out the menu, ordered some fish soup for John and a big ol’ whole bream fish for me. We live on the water, after all. It should be fresh, right? ...Right??

John’s soup came out. It REEKED of fish. If I’ve learned anything from my fisherman father, it’s that the fishier (lit.) something smells, the fishier (fig.) it is. John and I both eyed it suspiciously - two large slabs of what MUST have been seafood languished in a murky green broth dotted with floating spots of orangey oil. John trepidatiously dipped in and took an experimental sip. His eyebrow shot up. “This is, hrm, salty,” he remarked. “Almost unbearably so, in fact. Huh.” As we amiably chatted and waited for my dish to arrive, he would every so often dip into the soup again, screw up his courage and swallow a bit more.

Some of Chania’s numerous stray cats caught onto the scent. Two came meowling up to our table, looking piteously up at John and the enticing smells emanating from his bowl. One, especially, was quite insistent with his demands. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure our waiter wasn’t watching, he placed a small piece of fish on a bread plate and lowered it down under the table.

(note: the following video is not of the cat at our table. our cat, for instance, did not sing.)

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Soon after, John pushed his bowl away. “I can’t do it, Hannah,” he said with a tone of defeat. “I can’t even eat enough to be polite. It’s just terrible.”

Soon my own fish arrived – a whole grilled fish smeared with oil and spices and, upon further investigation, also overcooked and rubbery. Does overcooking cause rubberiness? I sure hope so.

John and I ended up splitting the fish – I was pretty over it by the time I had picked my way through one side, and John half-heartedly picked at the other.

The cats meowled. John extracted the rest of the fish from his soup and had me be the lookout while he once again loaded up the plate and lowered it down to the kitties. The loudest meowler took one sniff and immediately shunned the offering, trotting away with his nose in the air. Luckily the other one was not so picky – by the time John once again retrieved the plate, the fish was almost gone and John felt a bit better about the food not going to waste (unfortunately the cat died soon after. Kidding, just kidding).

John, never one to really complain about food, put his napkin down at the end of the meal and matter-of-factly proclaimed “well, that was probably the worst meal I’ve had since I’ve gotten to Greece. Man, was that just awful. We are DEFINITELY going to need to find some ice cream or a cookie immediately after we leave, if only to reward ourselves for getting through this.”

And of course, where do we end up? Curled into the squashy couches of our neighborhood Starbucks, hot chocolate (piled high with whipped cream) taking away the unpleasant aftertaste of old oil and bad seafood, with Rat Pack Christmas carols gently soothing the eerie memory of desperate kitties and deserted landscapes. Though I hate to admit it, Starbucks, sometimes you are a balm to the soul.