slothis · English

First Meal in Greece: To Elliniko in Glyfada

2017-01-27 · Updated: 2026-08-11 · Original (Korean)

This article was translated from the original Korean post with AI assistance. Read the original Korean post →

After holding out at the Athens airport, dozing off without taking a single step outside, the sun finally came up and it was morning. I grabbed a quick bite at McDonald's and killed time until my girlfriend arrived around lunch. We were finally stepping onto Athens soil.

Instead of staying in downtown Athens, we booked a hotel in Glyfada—a neighborhood with a wide-open view of the Mediterranean where you can truly feel the Southern European vibe. So, we hopped on a bus and headed there.

After a bus ride of just over an hour, we arrived at our accommodation. As soon as we unpacked, the two of us went out starving, looking for food. Since it was our first day, we just walked around without checking what was nearby and walked into the prettiest-looking place. That place is the subject of this post: Το Ελληνικό, or To Elliniko in English, though I have no idea what it means.

Inside a restaurant connected to the outdoors, wooden tables and chairs are set up, and various items are displayed on wall shelves.
A view looking outside from inside the restaurant, with several wooden tables and chairs set up and ready for a meal.
It's an eye-catching, clean restaurant, which is pretty standard for this area. For the record, no matter how much the Greek economy has collapsed, Glyfada is still an expensive neighborhood.

I was hesitating after we went in, so my girlfriend just started ordering. As expected, someone with more experience abroad knows how to order well. Plus, for some reason, I'm so used to traveling on a budget—whether I have money or not—that my mind kind of blanks out in restaurants like this. I feel like most guys probably go through this, right? Then you start worrying about the price, but if it shows on your face, you're bound to get scolded for frowning. Sigh, what's the point of even bringing it up...

Anyway, the menu we ended up ordering was a Greek salad, souvlaki, and a Greek-style octopus dish. (It had a specific name, but I forgot it.) Plus a glass of Mythos, a Greek beer!

A glass of Mythos beer, a bean salad with tomatoes, and pieces of bread in a basket are on the table.
The pre-meal bread. After eating a bean dish that I can't remember if we ordered or if it came with the bread, my stomach felt like it was post-meal rather than pre-meal.
A plate containing grilled meat skewers placed over french fries and a salad.
Souvlaki. It was similar to Russian shashlik, but if shashlik is all about the meat, souvlaki came with more potatoes and various vegetables to pair it with.
A salad topped with a thick slice of feta cheese over tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and olives is served in a white bowl.
Greek salad. If you don't know what to eat in Greece, just order a Greek salad. It looks like it was thrown together carelessly, but once that magical olive oil is added, it becomes incredibly delicious.
An octopus dish tossed in a dark red sauce, sprinkled with chopped herbs, with a spoon resting on it.
The octopus dish. I was a bit worried because I'm so used to Korean-style octopus, but it was a needless worry. Making the octopus tender is the standard here too.

When we ordered the three dishes, I naturally thought the octopus and souvlaki would be the best, but thanks to the unbelievable taste of the olive oil, the Greek salad suited my palate the most. And why were the vegetables so good? It's something I keep feeling since arriving in Greece, but with this kind of weather, I figured any vegetable would be impossible not to taste good—and it really is just so delicious.

That soft, good-natured vibe of the South is the same whether you're in Spain or Greece. As we were happily eating, taking pictures, and having fun, they brought us this and that on the house.

People are standing or sitting on the beach at dusk, and yachts are floating on the sea.
Silhouettes of people playing in the water at the beach at dusk.

If I ever became someone close to a god who could buy anything, I would absolutely buy Russia's art-like architecture and subways, along with Greece's Mediterranean weather and coastal waters.

The sea here is so beautiful that it almost makes me sad just looking at it.

Expenses

Total Expenses: €49.80 + $288.70

Total Trip Expenses: 525,936 KRW + 47,999 RUB + $600.96 + €141.87