μαστίχα / mass-TEEK-uh / mastic liqueur
It’s almost the weekend and I woke up this morning thinking of the smashed crispy potatoes we had LAST weekend at this little taverna near the northern edge of Plaka.
(I blame Russ, because late last night while I was trying to entertain myself with Youtube videos, I saw a Brian Lagerstrom video about potato techniques that foremostly featured pavé, so I of course had to watch it, and then later in the video he boiled some little Yukon gold baby potatoes and then smashed them and panfried them, and that was pretty close to the potatoes from last weekend, oh god I’m just gonna go get them now.)
ANYWAYS.
We had found this taverna early on this year but had just kinda wandered through it in our first weekend walking through Plaka, and decided to try it out when we were looking for a late dinner last Saturday. We got bekri meze and some grilled pork … part? (I don’t know what it was, the English menu said “pancetta” I think? and it could have been? whatever pancetta is made from? pork belly? oh yeah it could have been pork belly) and obviously some wine and we ate and laughed and got more wine and at the end of the night, the waiter brought out a couple of pieces of cake and a couple of shot glasses of a clear liquid which I expected was going to be ouzo but ended up being mastika.
Mastika is another of these traditional Greek digestive liqueurs, very VERY sweet, with an almost floral underlying flavor. Definitely not licorice-y like ouzo or sambuca, which makes it more enjoyable for me at least!