Columbus Foodie

Hubs and I just returned from the 34th Annual Greek Festival, hosted by the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Columbus. Ever since we’ve become aware of the event a couple of years ago, we’ve put it on our calendar every year because of the beauty of the cathedral, the showmanship of the music and dancers, and most of all, yummy Greek food in every direction.

I’ve got a passion for eating (and making) Greek food, and one of the things I’ve always wanted to taste is a dish called saginaki ($6), aka “flaming cheese”. It’s as much about the show as it is about the taste – our chef made sure we were watching as he sauteed the lightly breadcrumbed kasseri cheese in olive oil, setting it alight with brandy and squirting lemon juice on it to make the flames go higher. It is served with a pita, some olives and peppers, and a half a lemon, and is delicious eaten sandwich-style with the pita. Of course, everything is better with pita, isn’t it??

They had both an outdoor and indoor food area, and we strolled around the outside food area trying to decide what we wanted to eat. Husband was tempted by the sight of a whole lamb, roasting on a spit:

The lines, on the first pass, were very long – but moved very quickly. Efficiency was definitely a strong point with the festival workers, as was friendliness. We passed by the giant gyros and Greek fries and Greek pizza and eventually settled on souvlaki ($5), which is marinated and grilled chunks of pork, served on a stick in a pita. You remove the stick, and eat it like you would a taco.

We definitely went with a game plan in mind, which was to hit the inside food area to get enough Greek takeout to last us the next couple of days. So, with that in mind, we went through the food line, and picked up moussaka ($4 each):

and pastitsio ($4 each):

and a selection of appetizers, including tyropita($1 each) – feta stuffed phyllo, dolmathakia ($1.50 each) – meat and rice stuffed grape leaves, and keftedes ($1 each) – Greek meatballs.

In addition to the food, they’ve got tons of activities going on – cooking demonstrations, dance lessons, music, cathedral tours. There’s still the rest of tonight (until midnight) and tomorrow left of the festival, and with admission at $4 for all 4 days of the festival, well worth the price of entry.