The Birthday Bash in Detail!

Υεια μας! A shot of Raki to finish off my birthday dinner! Click for the rest of my pictures from my 22nd birthday in Athens!

I owe it to my mother to thank her again for making my 22nd birthday so wonderful. I also wanted to post the pictures from the event for you all to see! The 11 of us were comprised of my mother, her friend Rino from Paris, her two friends from Bend that had been in Egypt for a month, 5 of my friends from the program here, and Tricia’s sister Leslie who was here to visit for two weeks. We were basically the only group at the taverna the whole night until much later since people really don’t eat dinner here until around 10. We started meeting at Vyrinis around 8 pm and I can’t even remember when we left… it was late… and I was intoxicated. I blame the 4.5 kilos of house red wine that we drank as well as the pitchers full of Rakomelo that was all on the house! Rakomelo is Raki (a spirit made from grapes that’s about 60% alcohol) mixed with honey and spices such as cinnamon. Everyone said it tasted like apple pie and I had to agree with them. But that was much later on in the night.

First I should mention the 10 appetizers that I ordered for us throughout the night. We had two Greek salads, two eggplant salads (it’s a dip similar to babaganoush), one fava (bean dip), one tzatziki, one plate of giant baked beans, two dolmades (meat and rice wrapped in grape leaves), and some stuffed peppers. As if that wasn’t enough (yes it probably would have been) we also got some entrées to share and really stuff us all up! The chicken and mushrooms is amazing at Vyrinis and it even comes with French fries! They unfortunately only had 4 of them to offer the 6 orders we had intended on placing so two of us settled for lamb and French fries instead. Just as delicious in my opinion! I’ve had their whole menu a couple times over by now.

When it was time for dessert they brought me a piece of their delicious coconut chocolate cake with a candle on top. It was so special to have everyone around me singing and even Alex and Francis who work at Vyrinis were there behind me to wish me a happy birthday. A couple more desserts were passed around the table for us to try but I can’t even remember what they were at this point. The whole focus was on the coconut chocolate cake. I promised my mom that I would talk to the cook and get the recipe because she said it was the best cake she’s had in her whole life. The cake is really very simple, it is coconut cake soaked in honey with chocolate on the top and it just makes for an amazing combination. The cake is not too soggy from the honey and not too sweet either. When I get the recipe maybe I’ll post it online and you can try making it if you want!

The group of us at Vyrinis taverna in Athens, Greece! Click for the rest of my photos from dinner.

You should definitely look at the pictures from the night and see the bottle graveyard we created on the table. It’s really quite impressive. I think by the end of dinner we were all feeling pretty happy as we walked back home. So thank you again everyone for a wonderful night and we should all do it again before we leave this magical place!