After attending Macbeth at the opera, we were joined by the two royal leads for a fabulous dinner at Boston's KRASI in the West End. On arrival, there was a mix-up with our reservation, but it was indeed partially my fault as the person who made it used our soprano's last name, not mine! The manager was fab though and despite claiming overbooked, he cleared a large, raised table at the rear for 8 or more people and we got to occupancy half of it for three hours until the other group on the other side arrived as we were having dessert! The space is small and narrow and long with a long bar on one side and a tad noisy, but the food and superb service we got from Jorge made up for everything.
For us opera lovers, the bathrooms were loaded with photos of famous Greeks, with Callas being impressively featured more than anyone!
The water was Zagori from Greece, a new brand for us and quite nice and the menu while not huge, required negotiation which Jorge was perfect at. Some of us has Spritz's while I ordered a bottle of Assyrtiko from Domaine Mercouri in Ilia in western Greece where we had visited 6 years before and loved it. 2023 "Kallisto" was loaded with minerality and freshness that paired well with the strong food flavors. Since I loved this wine and the winery, we stayed with them for the red Mavro Daphne grape 2020 called "Daphne Nera" which was full bodied and superb with our heavier mains.
Krasi is a place to share dishes and that is exactly what we did with everything, making it so much more enjoyable and fun. Tiropita Rolls are cheese rolls with graviera and halloumi and a Greek honey butter on the side that all just melts in your mouth. Htipiti is that rich yet spicy whipped feta spread with roasted red chilis and are served with homemade rigali potato chips. I love artichokes and we were all excited for Agginaropita which was a tart/pie of artichoke, caramelized onion, graviera cheese, thyme and sourdough but was way cheesier than artichoke-y, though delicious. I would stick to this or the Tiropita instead.
Noumbolo from Corfu was a charcuterie of wild boar with coriander and red wine and there are many charcuterie choices (not something you think of in Greece!) and each comes with Carob bread, toursi(pickled cauliflower and carrots), caperberries and olive tapenade. It was a fab new treat.
We chose three "mains" to have starting with the Makaronada of braised octopus, makarounes (cavatelli pasta) and tapioca frigania. The octopus was tender and tasty, and the pasta was excellent. Lavraki was grape leaf wrapped whole Mediterranean sea bass with anchovy butter, sitari (pearl barley?) and horta(greens?) which I must have missed thought the fish was fleshy and tasty and loaded with spices and tasted just like Greece. The last main was Giouvetsi or Braised Lamb Osso Buco with ripe tomatoes, orzo, and mizithra cheese which was heavy rich and wonderful, and I had a teeny taste of as I was completely full by now.
Jorge insisted on bringing glasses of Tsipouro an aged Greek grappa which was too akin to ouzo for me but then proffered a complimentary dessert that was out of this world: Portokalopita was a gorgeous syrup-soaked orange cake made with phyllo pastry instead of flour, Greek yogurt, manouri cheese olive oil, creating a uniquely moist and custardy texture. with ice cream.
What a ball was had by all!
