Still searching

For a great Chinese restaurant in the off-season...

Last night we went to the Szechuan in Gouvia.  This is the sister restaurant of one that we'd originally gone to quite often, years ago when we first moved here. It's still located on the "Disco Strip" on the drive out of town..  It was (at the time) the only Chinese we could find on the island. 

It was always an uneven experience, in that, it was either very good or "meh...".  Still it WAS a Chinese restaurant and this IS Corfu...

The Gouvia restaurant is very lovely and has been made a "year round" place with the addition of big glass windows with elegant curtains. (In the summer it's an open patio.)

 We went a couple of times in the summertime and it was pretty good though a bit pricey.  We meant to go back but somehow didn't, and we thought we'd save it for that point in the wintertime where we really craved some Chinese food.

Now it's deep non-season, and it was time.

We split an order of fairly bland egg rolls (the sauces were good and gave them some flavor...)

And we got to enjoy a lovely fresh flower on the table!

Then our main dish arrived.  I had hot chili chicken (spicy) and T had Szechuan Chicken.

My chicken was pretty good. When you ask for spicy they add more hot chili pepper pod seeds. (It totally passed the leftover test though, as we brought a small amount back - T left 2 Tablespoonfuls!- and I am eating it cold as I write...)  Thankfully, the portions were more generous than they'd been the last time we at there!

T's Szechuan chicken was sadly inedible.  The sauce wasn't bad but the chicken pieces (which I suppose were meant to be deep fried then tossed with the sauce) were soggy and with the sauce on top, sort of turned to an inedible mush. 

This was rather surprising as I would guess it might be considered their "signature" dish!

The waiter was really very charming and when I called him to the table, he took the dish back, offering T another meal, (ANY meal)  but T had tasted my dish and just decided to eat the rest of my spicy chicken instead, which was fine with me.  (The only thing I thought was perhaps we'd come too early -we were there at 8 pm- and perhaps the oil wasn't hot enough...?)

The highlight for me was the egg fried rice, which was very flavorful (and I am not usually crazy about rice!)

There were quite a lot of take-outs coming and going over the course of our meal, but it was only as we were leaving that another table filled with customers.

So all in all, yes, we had Chinese food last evening, but no sadly it was NOT outstanding.

Still it'll do in a pinch, and for a closer--- the fortune cookies that came with the bill (adjusted to mirror our failed meal),  sent us along with good fortunes and the little farewell "fruit cordial" was interesting but not the best ending to the meal.

Waiting on the grapes...

Which seem to be taking their own sweet time to get ripe! (she says with some asperity.) OTHER people's grapes are coming along just fine, but our grapes are apparently dawdlers.

This whole business so reminds me of getting "the baby's" room ready. (slight rolling of eyes) Nevertheless, we have mostly what we need. We think.

Well, other than the ripe grapes.

So. We went to visit Andreas, our new wine making expert friend at the Cava. Several older men and one young one were there as well. We took with us two big bunches of our grapes for evaluation. Andreas asks how many grapes we have (?) T says he's approximated, but we have about 200 bunches like the one we brought in.

Interest is shown by all. Serious business this as they gathered around to look and taste. Great consternation and much clicking of teeth and raising of the eyebrows.

Finally after much discussion by all and sundry, Andreas gets a special little machine out -that looks like an odd cross between something the doctor would use to look in your ears and half a pair of binoculars!- and rubs the grape juice on the end that is not the binoculars looking one.

He carefully peers into the eye viewer and [sad face] turns the little eye hole to me to look. It says '16'. He tells me it must say 22 or it's all useless.

I sigh. Everyone commiserates. The few who speak English give us advice. It is all contradictory.

I must leave the grapes to ripen for another week. Oh, po-po-po, probably it will be two more weeks, but before the end of the month. I must check them diligently every day because they will ripen "suddenly". It must be HOT for them to ripen well. Of course, if it rains, I must NOT pick them for three days else it spoils the wine.

One wonders how wine was produced all those centuries. It is not a simple process, this. Andreas tells me to come back with some grapes before I pick them- just to be sure of the sugar content. I nod and try to look intelligent.

I come home and speak to my friend, who has generously lent us her wine press. She's not making wine this year because they built a grape arbor for her vines and cut them way back this summer, so she has no grapes. She says she has some free time a week from Sunday and will come and help me pick grapes. I tell her they're not ready yet. She says "We'll just pick the ones that are! No problem!" She obviously has never spoken with Andreas.

Meanwhile....

T is leaving for the USA on Tuesday. He will only be gone 15 days. Ah, but how important those 15 days will be in the lives of our grapes!!

I will be checking diligently with the dog as my assistant. We will become winemasters together.

-----

In sympathy, T took me to the Chinese in Ipsos, one last time before they close for the Season (end of September- boo-hoo... No Chinese food til the first week of May!).

We had a lovely dinner and I was surprised as it was almost full of people (all the tables with a view anyway!). I was told by a friend that since the weather was so rainy in England this past summer, many people were grabbing up the cut rate flights in September to ANY sunnier clime. It was seemingly true as the tables were filled with English and Dutch speakers.

T ordered Mu Shu Pork (same as the last time) and I ordered Vegetable Chow Mein (in honor of my diet) we split an order of spring rolls.

We had a little conversation with the waiters who were very surprised at how busy they suddenly were.

Mostly we talked about T being away for the "picking of the grapes". He is disappointed, and sad, and a little envious that I will be here for it and he won't. (He is also concerned I will throw my back out or fall off a ladder or do some other stupid thing, I have been known to do when throwing myself into a project. I must remind him of all the things I have been reasonably successful at over the course of years...)

I told him I would cut them from the vine, squash them in the tub and stir them diligently three times a day, til he got home. But the fine details of siphoning, testing and the eventual bottling were all his future tasks. For sure, NEXT year we would have a better idea of what we were doing...

How odd that we are still spending so much of our lives thinking well into the future!! Next year, next May, Next summer, next fall (olive season!)... Time to remind myself to "Be here NOW"!

Well except for the fact that my mother is coming NEXT month for the whole month!


~~~