Acropolis

By the end of my third day living off of bread and crêpes and other bits picked up around town (due to being in a hostel without the slightest sign of cooking equipment) I decided it was time for some nutrients. Dining out alone is an experience travel writing likes to have a song and dance about sometimes. It is probably talked about in Eat Pray Love and has equally been claimed to get your mind used to being Alone if you are going for a long, long trip where you will be Alone.

I don’t mind buying and eating food alone, say on a park bench. I do this a lot when I have to read for an essay or I am in a hurry and eat on various steps like those on Broad St. I like watching people pass by. Here in Vannes this has the added bonus of people being so into food that quite like to comment on what you’ve got. I have already had about three people wish me ‘bon appetit’ as they walk past and I am struggling with the complexities of a rather-big-galette. Which is kind.

Going out for a meal just seems more a more communal event, where you don’t just pay money for the food (more to come), but for the atmosphere and experience of eating out. It’s not that this experience is impossible alone - it was still a pleasant evening and I sat outside - but having a meal is something I quite like to share if I am shelling out. 

So stuck in a bit of a conundrum compromised on Good Food (lack of wanting to spend money but a need for some vegetables, coupled with not being to savvy about eating alone) I had bit of an unfruitful wander on my second night and got chips. Last night  I walked around the whole old town about twice looking for somewhere I could slink into quietly and hide in a corner. I found Acropolis just off Rue Thiers on the way up the hill to the Hotel de Ville. No one else was there yet, but by the second time I passed it I had to go in. I very nearly wussed out and got a take-away portion to eat by the port, but got over myself and, after they didn’t have any vegetable moussaka left, I ordered stuffed aubergine and decided that being alone meant it was food critic time and that I would be somewhere in a Guardian supplement in no time.

Altogether I paid 13,00€, and what arrived was a brimful-basket of Greek bread (I did not fill up on this due to my bread quota being completely surfeited this week) and a decently sized main plate of aubergine, salad and bulgar wheat. The salad was fine enough: normal onions cucumber and tomatoes with a bit of lettuce, all made a bit better by a dollop of yogurt on the side. The bulgar wheat, well, I have had really nice bulgar wheat before. This was a bit sticky, mostly adhered with something tomato-y.  The aubergine itself was well cooked and stuffed with a mystery stuffing that was blended to indistinction, but had in it peppers and onions for sure and tasted good enough with some roasty peppers on top. 

While I enjoy most food put in front of me and especially enjoyed this because of its high percentage of veg, I have two minds when it comes to eating out: usually falling into impressed, or not, but more specifically the first is in the line of Lasagne in The Queens in New Quay, impressively home made from scratch during the time we were there. The latter category is a bit underwhelmed and soggy, sitting around waiting for someone to reheat it. I judge the latter perhaps unfairly, because I feel the point of eating out is to have something you could not make more satisfactorily, easily, or freshly, at home. Unfortunately Acropolis’ augergine fell into the latter because of one deciding factor: sitting a bit sadly in the counter before I ate it.

I know food being cooked to order is not the best way of doing things, especially with an erratic clientele, but there’s something about hearing a couple of microwave beeps whilst you’re sitting outside for your 13,00€ meal that doesn’t seem quite right. Reheating things for convenience is all very well, but if you’re paying? Perhaps we shouldn’t have comparative expectations for what we’d make at home when we eat out, or maybe we should all go for 2 for £10 main courses back in New Quay and stop complaining.

The waitress there was by contrast a bit more lively and seemed happy to serve me and recommend me food, as I was the first customer. In some ways it pays to eat early (I went around 7.20)  if you are alone, so that you are not an inconvenience to hoards of families gathering. Then you can hop up and leave before the main crowds arrive. Altogether it seems more acceptable to eat out on your own at lunch time where things are  a more casual affaire instead of familiy celebrations over hours of food, the convivialité of which just doesn’t work alone. My resolution was yesterday was to find somewhere at lunch time to have a big plate of something filling, but time did not allow. So that’s for next time thank you hindsight.