Florida vacation day 7 -- Tarpon Springs
Todays playlist
Never on Sunday
Miserou
Zorba the Greek
We have friends, former Long Islanders who now live near Tampa. Our vacation plans included spending some time with them. When we visited them two years ago, they took us to a lovely Gulf Coast town called Tarpon Springs. So this time around, we agreed to meet them in Tarpon Springs. It's a two hour drive from Davenport, so our plan was to meet at lunchtime.
Yes, you read that right, it's the sponge capital of the world. The local industry is based on harvesting sea sponges.
Tarpon Springs is like a lot of small towns on the Gulf Coast. You can take a sightseeing cruise or charter a fishing boat, you can shop for beach wear and souvenirs, enjoy a meal or buy some ice cream, visit the very small aquarium or the sponge museum, everything you'd expect .
But what makes Tarpon Springs different from other Gulf Coast towns...walk down Dodocanese Avenue and you'll see the town's Greek heritage on display. In 1905, John Cocoris introduced the technique of sponge diving to Tarpon Springs by recruiting divers and crew members from Greece, which revolutionized the Florida sponge industr. The town became a destination for Greek immigrants, and is now a mecca for some of the best Greek food I've ever eaten.
Seriously, with the exception of a lone taqueria at the end of Dodocanese Avenue, all of the restaurants and bakeries in the tourist area serve Greek food. You have to wonder how the taqueria managed to land on that street. Spanikopita tacos maybe?
Our destination?
Yes, we had lunch at Hellas.
It's a full service restaurant on one side, a bakery/cafe on the other.
Our friends introduced us to this restaurant two years ago, and we enjoyed it so much that we just had to go back.
We started our meal with saganaki. This is a semi soft cheese, which is briefly pan fried to develop a "crust". The cheese is then doused with brandy and "flamed' at the table, so it becomes rich and gooey. Opa!
I couldn't decide which entree I wanted -- you know how I love Greek food -- so I ordered the combination platter. The platter included gyro meat (rotisserie beef and lamb) (and they will correct you if you do't pronounce it "yeero"), pastitsio (a casserole of ziti, ground beef, Romano cheese and a creamy sauce), moussaka (a casserole of eggplant, potatoes, ground beef and a cheese sauce), dolmades (ground beef mixture wrapped in grape leaves) and tzatziki (a sauce made from Greek yogurt and garlic). The dish was served with Greek potatoes, rice pilaf and peas in tomato sauce.
A word about dolmades. Here in New York the Greek restaurants stuff grape leaves with a cold rice mixture and serve them on top of Greek salad. You cannot find grape leaves stuffed with a meat mixture. Drew tells me that his mother (who was of Greek-Jewish heritage) used to make dolmades stuffed with meat, so when he found the dish on Hellas' menu, he was ecstatic.
Alas, I just didn't care for dolmades, so I wound up giving mine to Drew.
Even so, there was far too much food on my plate, and therefore no room for dessert. I probably should have grabbed a slice of their baklaa cheesecake at the bakery to take wiht me, but...
...though I did wind up buying some salt water taffy. And a sea sponge and some locally handcrafted soaps.
After all the excitement of Disney, it was good to have a low-key and pleasant afternoon.
We have friends, former Long Islanders who now live near Tampa. Our vacation plans included spending some time with them. When we visited them two years ago, they took us to a lovely Gulf Coast town called Tarpon Springs. So this time around, we agreed to meet them in Tarpon Springs. It's a two hour drive from Davenport, so our plan was to meet at lunchtime.
Yes, you read that right, it's the sponge capital of the world. The local industry is based on harvesting sea sponges.
Tarpon Springs is like a lot of small towns on the Gulf Coast. You can take a sightseeing cruise or charter a fishing boat, you can shop for beach wear and souvenirs, enjoy a meal or buy some ice cream, visit the very small aquarium or the sponge museum, everything you'd expect .
But what makes Tarpon Springs different from other Gulf Coast towns...walk down Dodocanese Avenue and you'll see the town's Greek heritage on display. In 1905, John Cocoris introduced the technique of sponge diving to Tarpon Springs by recruiting divers and crew members from Greece, which revolutionized the Florida sponge industr. The town became a destination for Greek immigrants, and is now a mecca for some of the best Greek food I've ever eaten.
Seriously, with the exception of a lone taqueria at the end of Dodocanese Avenue, all of the restaurants and bakeries in the tourist area serve Greek food. You have to wonder how the taqueria managed to land on that street. Spanikopita tacos maybe?
Our destination?
Yes, we had lunch at Hellas.
It's a full service restaurant on one side, a bakery/cafe on the other.
Our friends introduced us to this restaurant two years ago, and we enjoyed it so much that we just had to go back.
We started our meal with saganaki. This is a semi soft cheese, which is briefly pan fried to develop a "crust". The cheese is then doused with brandy and "flamed' at the table, so it becomes rich and gooey. Opa!
I couldn't decide which entree I wanted -- you know how I love Greek food -- so I ordered the combination platter. The platter included gyro meat (rotisserie beef and lamb) (and they will correct you if you do't pronounce it "yeero"), pastitsio (a casserole of ziti, ground beef, Romano cheese and a creamy sauce), moussaka (a casserole of eggplant, potatoes, ground beef and a cheese sauce), dolmades (ground beef mixture wrapped in grape leaves) and tzatziki (a sauce made from Greek yogurt and garlic). The dish was served with Greek potatoes, rice pilaf and peas in tomato sauce.
A word about dolmades. Here in New York the Greek restaurants stuff grape leaves with a cold rice mixture and serve them on top of Greek salad. You cannot find grape leaves stuffed with a meat mixture. Drew tells me that his mother (who was of Greek-Jewish heritage) used to make dolmades stuffed with meat, so when he found the dish on Hellas' menu, he was ecstatic.
Alas, I just didn't care for dolmades, so I wound up giving mine to Drew.
Even so, there was far too much food on my plate, and therefore no room for dessert. I probably should have grabbed a slice of their baklaa cheesecake at the bakery to take wiht me, but...
...though I did wind up buying some salt water taffy. And a sea sponge and some locally handcrafted soaps.
After all the excitement of Disney, it was good to have a low-key and pleasant afternoon.
I did an entire month of "Florida Outside the Theme Parks" for Blogging from A to Z last year, and I could maybe have done another one this year, because...well, I haven't been to Tarpon Springs since 1975, and I am so happy to see the Greek influence is still there. Florida has so much to offer and I've only scratched the surface of it. I would so love to go back and we just can't fit it in because I have a cousin and a high school friend living in the Orlando area but I will. I really, really,will, after reading your post. I'm so hungry, too! Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteWith all the Greek, a town needs a little variety (the taqueria is counter programming).
ReplyDeleteLol, yeah, you do need something as a counterpoint to all that Greek food ...
ReplyDeleteAnd I’ve read your blog posts, Alana, so I had a feeling you’d know Tarpon Springs. I hope you get a chance to go back.