Eating out has been a fun part of settling in and getting to know people in these first few weeks. And there are also a number of local dishes which we’ve been sampling between us involving slow cooked lamb, tender pork and spicy meat balls. But the infamous dish is a ‘Mezze’, which I believe means a mix of lots of dishes. This is ideal for newcomers because you get to try out some 30 dishes in small portions and have a little of everything shared with everyone else on the table.
According to two expert local diners who treated us the other night, some restaurants try and fill you up with lots and lots of dips and pitta, then very few main dishes…and of course, as they explained, “Not everyone likes dips!” So, the other night we ventured out to a quaint local restaurant in a nearby village renowned for serving the best ‘Mezze’. It was not a lot to look at from the outside, just rough square tables, with blue and white check table clothes and little wicker and painted wooden chairs on the pavement by the road. But inside it opened up into a rustic scene, with wooden barrels and other recycled items made into furniture, a huge curving wooden bar and pieces of driftwood arranged into art forms hanging from ceilings and walls. We later discovered the owner, whose grandfather had started the restaurant, was a painter in his spare time and many of his highly original artworks hung along the walls, from faces and scenes painted on planks of crumbling wood to a clock build into driftwood with a 3d boat at its base.
The owner then came and sat down beside us, asking us which dishes we would like to have for the Mezze…a long list of mysterious names were reeled off, which he wrote down and made notes on and then disappeared with a smile into the kitchens. What followed was a whole lot of food! Starting with dips and salad, then meats and mushrooms and marrow balls and…it carried on. It turned out the key was to eat slowly and our hosts had given the owner special instructions on this. “But make sure, Cigar, Cigar,” he had emphasised at the end of the ordering. I was slightly puzzled, would cigars follow the meal? I like a cigar as much as the next woman, but it was unusual to order them with the food – I’d rather wait for the brandy or whisky…

The real meaning of “cigar, cigar,” or “siga, siga” emerged as the courses continued to arrive. Of course, it meant ‘slowly, slowly’…so the waiter was urged to bring out the different dishes more slowly in order for us to enjoy the meal, take our time as we ate and chatted and ate some more…
Had we tried this? No, not had any of that yet, another flavour and texture to experience…we had filled our plates several times over and although it had all been delicious, I was relieved to see the arrival of what looked like fruit salad, with big chunks of melon perhaps. What’s this now? Ah, this is the lamb with potatoes… Oh dear, more meat and then another dish that wasn’t fruit salad either, it was the slow cooked pork. It’s a very good job there were some big eaters on the table that night. We left very full, but happy. The fantastic thing about the Mezze was that the meal was so much more than just eating, it was sharing stories, passing the food around, making sure each one had tasted all the dishes and everyone was having what they needed. This was so much better than sitting down to a rushed main course, to be eaten quickly before someone jumped up from the table to get on with whatever they were doing before – probably back onto the computer. Here there was time for conversation and enjoying being there with one another, giving each other time, ‘siga siga.’
We have had another Mezze since that evening – more of an official engagement. The setting was beautiful, on a pier surrounded by the sea at night, but the hotel food was not a patch on the little village restaurant, either in quality or quantity. My very own ‘Good food guide to Cyprus’ is on its way…