Back to our favourite café - our new local.
In the evening J, M and I head over to the restaurant known as "not the Famagusta but the one next to it." We go at six, ridiculously early for cypriots and unnaturally early even for us, mindful of the fact that it closes at 7:30. We do know tht it's popular at lunch. What we haven't picked up is that it's basically cafeteria style and by the end of the day the choice is pretty diminished. So a walk along Macarios looking at the options. In the end we finish up at the Famagusta, right across from the Sunflower.
It turns out to be a pleasure. Not very full at this hour (by now 6:30) but a traditional Cypriot enu, and attentive proprietor (cum chef?). We order beef stifado and it's excellent. Done in a nice balance of Commandaria style wine with a touch of vinegar and succulent onions. He discusses the cooking methods in detail and agrees to see what they have in vegetables - spinach, it seems, which we all like. We also get a small sample - on the house, he explains - of cypriot preserved fruit. It purports to be lime peel preserved to curling softness in syrup and bottled for weeks. However, the fact that it's carrot coloured and the fact that limes are the most expensive and rare of Cypriot citrus fruits make us wonder. Very nice, but sweet enough that the small sample is plenty.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS