birds, bees and calamari - facts of life at Athens Tavern

I am the luckiest girl in the world. My girlfriend K is brilliant, thoughtful, stunningly gorgeous and she looks good eating anything. And on top of all that, she's the best co-mom a kid could have. Since L, my daughter is pushing 11, and is, as my mother loves to say "developing," we thought it was about time to have "the talk" with her. The very idea of discussing anything approaching sex with a ten year old throws me into abject terror, but with K as back-up, I thought it would be do-able.

After lots of discussion (most of it consisting of me with my hands over my eyes, fretting 'oh my gawd, what am I gonna say...), we decided that the sensible thing to do would be to take L out to her own dinner and open the door to that sort of discussion. You know, her own special thing, where we would expound on the virtues and excitement of her impending pre-teenhood, caution her about drugs and peer pressure,... let her know that we were there for her, offer our sage advice on whatever questions she may have about anything and everything: social dilemmas, her changing body, boys.... any topic would be fair game.

She was enthusiastic about the whole idea, and when we told her she could pick the restaurant, she chose Athens Tavern. We like Athens, because it is home cooked Greek fare in a nice hole in the wall sort of location with its own smoking section perched up in the back. It's one of those places where every time we go, it's good. Not to say Athens' food is ultra extraordinary, but it's wonderfully reliable and they always have lots of specials, the service is always great, and we've never had anything that wasn't fresh and well prepared.

We started out with the Calamari. Athen's Calamari is tender inside and crisply fried outside. It's a little different, in that instead of the rings you often see, it comes in sort of sliced looking pieces, served with a thick mild garlic sauce. A good squeeze of lemon, and the slices scoop up the tangy sauce like little boats. I get hungry all over again just thinking about it- it's almost as yummy as a Big Daddy corn fritter (see Big Daddy post). We ordered the Syrah to go with our food, since the wine list there is a little odd- heavy on unfamiliar (Greek I guess) wines that look a little suspicious to me. Tonight we opted for the whole bottle, instead of a glass. L had Sprite.

As we picked through our 'Greeked up" salads- house salad with feta, peperocini, olives, oil and vinegar, tomatoes, and anchovies (if you can stand them), K glanced expectantly at me out of the sides of her eyes... "Uh..." I stammered between forkfulls.."We just wanted to let you know that we're always here for you, and ...um, we'll never judge you, and you can ask us anything you want to... whaddya wanna know?"

We both stop breathing for a few seconds...L butters her bread and gazes at the ceiling... Finally she speaks: "I want a debit card. How do I get one?" This is not what I expected. I patiently explain how debit cards work, and then I try again. "Ah... don't you have any questions about boys?" L rolls her eyes... "All the boys are dorks." I am not getting anywhere. I look helplessly at K. "Do you know how girls get pregnant?" she inquires. L does not. I look back at K... "you tell her," I say. Oh no.... turns out, that's my job. I do the dirty work, imparting the delicate information, leaving everyone shrieking "Eeeeeeew!" K makes the save, telling her it's a powerful and emotional force, bailing me out of my hamhanded description of the mechanical aspects of the act, and we go ahead and order.

As usual, there is an impressive list of tempting specials... Lobster ravioli, an array of pasta dishes, lamb, chicken... and on and on. I've had all sorts of good things here- Spanikopita, Tiropita, some sort of spinach and tomato pasta, Moussaka...all delicious and obviously homemade. Tonight L and I both go for the Souvlaki. It comes with your choice of sides, and L got a rice pilaf, while I opted for spaghetti. I have to say the marinara here is exceptional. Some of the best ever. I noticed it this visit so much that I think I will have to get a marinara based dish on my next visit. The Souvlaki was very good though- 2 skewers of seasoned pork with a spoonful of creamy Tziatziki sauce, made of yogurt and cucumber. My only complaint was that I'd have like to see more veggies on the skewer too- the lonely little bits of onion and green pepper were not quite enough to be a complement.

K had the seafood pasta special, which looked wonderful. The tastes I begged lived up... It was pasta in red sauce with all sorts of goodies- big scallops, shrimp, crab, mussels in the shell, were the highlights I recall. Often when you get a seafood pasta in other restaurants, they scrimp on the seafood and cover things up with sauce. That was not the case here. the seafood was fresh and well prepared and it was center stage of the dish. We felt all our food was well seasoned, and all of the portions were large enough that we had great lunches the next day. I really like that Athens is the kind of place that can work equally well for a romantic date, or a family dinner.

I decided to try one more time. "Now that you know some of the facts of life, is there anything else you'd like to ask us about?" L stuffs a huge bite of Galactiburikos (lemon custard and phyllo dessert) into her chops, and chews thoughtfully....:Do you think they'll teach Shakespeare in sixth grade?" she asks.

Maybe we'll try this again in a couple years, but we'll be back to Athens many times before then.

Athens Tavern
401 N Robinson St
Richmond, VA 23220
(804) 353-9119