unique blend drawn from sources all around the East Mediterranean, there is a variety not quite found elsewhere in the world. Salads and fruit are excellent, meat dishes such as Kleftico (lamb cooked in a clay oven ) which is delicious, and there are many vegeterian dishes using olive oil, tomato, local herb and spices. Hundreds of years of practise make perfect. At some stage, try a meze - a feast up to 30 small dishes of just about everything in the kitchen. But what about kolokas? this is a root vegetable (colocasia esculanta) rather like a sweet potato and a speciality of cyprus. It has a rich flavour and they say that Richard the Lionheart had kolokas at his wedding feast in 1911 in Cyprus.
Nothing can be more typically Cypriot than hellim cheese. A particularly versatile cheese, hellim cheese freshly made may preserve for later use, or grated to sprinkle for macaroni dishes. It is specially good fried or grilled, and is unusual in that this is one cheese that doesn't melt when cooked.
More often than not a nescafe will be offered to a vistor but perhaps you would prefer to drink the same as the locals sitting around you. Cypriots drink lots of local coffee. It is made individually in small long handled pots, wide at the base and tapering at the top. These are called cezve and come in various sizes. Fresh coffee beans, usually Brazilian, are finely ground or powdered daily and one heaped teaspoon is added to each cup of water, sugar goes in to it at this stage, before heating the coffee on the stove. So you need to Know whether you order your coffee sekerli(sweet), orta(medium), or sade(no sugar). The local brandy is also very popular and it is the main ingredient of refreshing brandy sour.