"Its the most wonderful time of the year" September, woohoo!

WHAT TIME IS IT? IT'S UPDATE TIME!

 

What have you all been up to? Anything interesting? How's your week been? You all looking forward to Christmas? "Ding Dong merrily on high, Rudolph the red nosed santa is coming TO TOWN!" Well the song goes something like that anyway.

 

Not been that exciting a week for me outside the bar, still very hot in daytime just been relaxing around the house but I would like to get some sun and pool time in before I head back home but with it still being very busy at night in the bar i'm trying to save any energy I have left for rushing around making drinks. With the season being as manic it has been it is starting to kick in now with the tiredness and aching but still got at least 5 weeks to go, maybe 6 weeks depending on if I stay till the very end or not, after all whatever October brings is a bonus. Bar is still going great guns and Sept is looking real good so far also have now sold 307 t-shirts, Spiro my t-shirt partner is a very happy man. I think I may have upset a few of my regulars by not spending as much time being able to chat with them as I normally do but when the bar is that busy I have to make making customers drinks priority i'm afraid, of course I would love to chat and have a laugh but peoples drinks orders must come first, so all I can do is say a huge big "SORRY".

 

So this weeks al a carte food is brought via the Kevlar cooking school of excellence, so I've put the crumpet creations on the back burner for this week and moved on to pitas, a base for so many Greek dishes so here is my dish to add to the many favourites, its a olive oil covered pita grilled lightly then add slices of cold corned beef and top with Heinz salad cream and eat while pita bread is hot, mmmmmm yummy!

  

Ok it doesn't look that good but who cares, its just shoved in your mouth and gone within minutes so why make it look good ha ha.

 

As I was walking around town just having a wonder, as you do, I came across a Greek car which found the best use for a Scarlets rugby team beach towel, its a sun visor. How in hullaballous name did that towel become a sun visor on a small island in Greece? You see the strangest things on this island LOL

There's a few new café bars opened in town, last week I told you about one of my faves Bliss Art Café re-opening after 2 years closed well here are 2 new ones. The first used to be the old bus station in the centre of Zakynthos town, it looks lovely the also do food not just coffee and drinks. Haven't tried it yet but i'm sure I will before I head back to UK.

The second used to be the site of an old garage/petrol station, I mean very old, they still have the original old hand pump petrol pump outside the building. Again I haven't tried a coffee in here yet but will, I took these pictures on way to accountant so didn't have time to stop off a try them.

As we're on the subject of cafe's I went back to Bliss today for a frappe and decided to try their cheese and deli meat platter, very nice indeed it was to. Only thing I didn't like was the cheese that had blue bits running through it, is that true they run metal wire through it? I must say it did taste of metal and in fact was most probably the most fowl tasting thing I've ever ate and I've ate goats head and lamb testicles LOL. I did take a picture of what I had, or what I did have, I only remembered to take a pic after I had finished it all off, apart from the metal cheese.

Now I have found a favourite biscuit. Its from Lidl, its a butter biscuit covered in chocolate but because Lidl is a bit of a distance from my house I have had to make do with sub standard biscuits, until today. In Spar today I found the exact same biscuit under a Greek brand. Now this is how to eat them, first get a cup of tea, them dip it in as far as you can, when the biscuit is soaked take it out and suck on it, then once you've done that bite it before it goes soft then swallow it whole, mmmmm de-e-e-licious.

Well a short update I know but i'm sure the next one will be a lot bigger as i'm taking a break from my blog for 2 weeks as Helen is here for her final holiday of the season before I head home at the end of the season to my beautiful girl, so looking forward to spending some quality time with her outside of the bar. Sorry went a bit mushy there. I do have a heart you know, well somewhere anyway. Now where did I put it LOL

 

So remember to keep checking for your picture on the website and until 2 weeks time folks I shall say "tatty bye everybody, tatty bye", its is still ok to mention Ken Dodd isn't it? Well you never know these days LOL.

 

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!

WOOHOO! I've got something i've wanted for ages!

Well August is over and it was a very good and surprising one, to be honest with you I thought it was going to be a ghost bar what with the prices of holidays but only had 4 quiet nights all month but even those were good so can't complain at all. Also been getting quite a few in from the Klelia Hotel which is good to see as its AI, OK, they don't have many English staying there but the ones who do pop in to the bar so its all good.

 

Helen looking to get over this month mid Sept so that's good, can't wait to see my beautiful girl again, been to long this time, but soon.

 

Little St. Dionysios has been out and carted around town with his normal 5 day festival and main day being the 24th August. That has been the only down point about living in Bochali, bloody St. Dionysios festival, the town streets are packed every night even at 3am, traffic is a nightmare and people just walking out in front of you. On Mon the 26th the streets and pavements were still jam packed then Tuesday, no one, I mean absolutely no one, well, about 20 people i saw out at 3am. One minute on every corner were outdoor souvlaki BBQ grills, doughnut stands, cake stands and grilled corn stands, then Tuesday not even a hot dog wrapper to been seen on the streets. So weird.

 

The 5 day market just gets worse, every year I go and every year I buy less, in fact this year I bought nothing. The clothes on the stalls are cheap for the island but nowhere near as cheap when you've shopped in Primark, yes I shop in Primark and proud of it, they've lasted me much longer than designer clothes I've had and they are 10 times cheaper LOL.

All the stores were tat and tat and tat.

Oooh, that reminds me of a song by Manhattan Transfer " Chanson D'amour, rat-ti-tat-ti-tat", which leads me to a true story. My friends father had 2 heart attacks at the time that song was in the no.1 in the charts, and each time the heart attack happened that song was playing, so when I was in their house this one night, top of the pops was on TV and that song came on the tele, as quick as a flash he got up and left the room to go upstairs, then when he came down that's when he told me the story, so every time it came on the radio or TV he would go out of that room just in case, I have the same thing, when a 1D song comes on somewhere, my bloody pressure rises lol.

 

 

The Manhattan Transfer market stalls, tat-ti-tat-ti-tat.

 

 

 

The very good thing about the market is the food. Cause there are so many stands I never know what to have, so I thought I'd have the lot, 10 mini doughnuts with white chocolate sauce, meat pie, cheese & ham pie and to finish off a vanilla cream pie mmmmmmm,  Doh! I forgot the souvlaki's.

 



Now people have been knocking me for my crumpet creations, come on guys, think outside the box, it doesn't have to be just boring butter on top. So to prove I can actually cook a bit here is a 3 minute boiled egg with crumpets soldiers, crumpet soldiers, what a great idea.

Look at that lovely soft yolk, boiled to perfection.

Here we have a 2 bean chili con carne with homemade gnocchi lightly covered in salted butter.
See I can cook LOL.

Its been so long since I've had this and have been looking for ages but now I've found it and thank god I have. Corned beef, Don't you just love it. In sandwiches, in corned beef hash, in pasties and even fried with onion, that's so good. Now this particular brand I've never heard of before "Universal" but its the only make I have found so I bought a tin....or 3. It was only after I took this pic that I noticed something very disturbing "Product of France" AAAAAgggghhhhhhhh! HORSE MEAT! Never mind it tasted good even if it was.

So what do you do one night if you've made a big bowl of chili the day before and then buy 3 tins of corned beef........have a corned beef and cold chili roll mmmmmmmmm! What? its beef and beef isn't it, corned beef, minced beef, what's the problem? LOL

Now to end this master class in cooking we have this weeks crumpet creation, white pudding grilled topped with tuna and salad cream, I don't know where I get the ideas from but it works. Fine dining, A la carte, Michelin star, fancy food nonsense can kiss my lilly white buttocks.

Mojito, mojito, mojito, that's all I seem to be making lately and I've taken it off my menu this year. People are being told to come and try them by other people who have been in the bar, best form of advertising, word of mouth and cheapest lol.  I'm making so many my mint plants haven't had time to regenerate, that's 12 huge plants so far so I've had to buy another 6 plants and those are quickly being stripped bare, the garden centre loves me.

2 years ago my favourite café in Zakynthos town closed down, the balcony café but 5 days ago it re-opened, woohoo! its now called Bliss art café, it did only used to be upstairs through a small doorway but now they have changed the shop below in to a bar area which I think will make a lot of difference, good luck to them, you'll be getting my money anyway.

As I was riding to work, oooh 4 days ago I think I could see that mount skopos was on fire. It looked like quite a bad one. As I watched there were 3 fire planes constantly circling dropping water on it but being as it was in a valley they had to drop it from quite a height and time was running out as this was 6pm and the planes have to stop when it gets dark at 8.30pm but you'll be pleased to know they got it under control in time, good job guys.

What is it with my bar this year and animals, now I have another lady dog who comes and stays every night. again she is such a pretty well tempered thing and very clean, she's definitely someones pet or has been but no collar. I cant get to attached to this one as "Dog" will get jealous, so I just give her the odd chew but don't give her to much attention. Poor thing. I've called her "Brown", what? To original? LOL

And talking of animals, you'll remember that in the bar I used to have Eddie, Eddie L-Izzard, well now in the house I've got Eddie junior, awww he's only the size of a 2 cent coin, still finding his way in this world.

Unfortunately an hour after that pic was taken Eddie Jnr stopped moving so I gave him a Danish Viking burial, in a Lurpak tub LOL.

Well my fine blog lovers its that time again to bid you farewell and open up the bar for another exciting night. Wish my bloody dongle worked at house, its a nightmare having to write updates in bar as it takes me even longer than normal and its to bloody hot and I can't lay on the sofa while typing it I have to stand up LOL.

Till next week,

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!