Greek Night at Atki Arilla Hotel - BRILLIANT fun!

[Judi]

The music at Akti was tapped, no live musicians unfortunately - I suppose things have become more commercialised everywhere for these sort of things.  We just missed the Arillas festival thingy along past Brouklis which was the day after we left.  That seemed to be for ex-pats who all come back to join in, so am guessing that was more authentic?

Must admit, we have more accidentally than on purpose come across Greek Nights before at other places.  Having just had the disappointing night at Thalassa we decided to give this a go.

The dancers seemed very professional and I thought extremely good.  After the second set they got everyone to join in with the dance where you hold hands following them threading in and out of other dancers (NOT through legs thankfully!)  Because of the size of the dance floor created by moving tables into the lounge area there was plenty of room to do this despite a lot of people joining in.  No silly belly dancing or embarrassment of any kind.

After the third set they got people to join in again, in a circle holding shoulders Zorba style - moving in and out, up and down (almost okey cokey like if you get me?!) which was quite a giggle.  They also got people to copy a couple of movements from dances they had performed - to much clapping and cheering from everyone else.  I found myself doing a movement (paired with a smiling Romanian guest) where you hold hands crossed in front of you, lean back, then twiddle round fast on the spot.  That was quite fun - good job I had suitable flat shoes on - LOL.  I am usually shy about joining in this sort of thing, but am really glad I did.

The food was good - not top notch haute cusine, but nicely cooked and tasty.  As said previously, they had a set menu but did not mind you having anything at all from the ordinary menu instead.

One thing I would suggest you check on the menu though is the dessert.  As we all know, Greeks dont seem to go for desserts in restaurants like we do.  There was a party of Romanians who were having what I think was described as 'Apricots in syrup'  We noticed when it came out it looked suspiciously like tinned - which the Romanians seemed delighted with.  Not something we would expect in a restaurant so double check  what you are going to get so you can choose appropriately.  We were quite happy with everything else, my swordfish was fresh and nicely cooked - very tasty.  OH had the set Greek dish (cant remember what it was now!) but he said it was nice.  He had been enjoying sampling this dish at different places to see the different variations on it (He is a lecturer/professional chef so always on the look out for new ideas etc)

We felt the evening well worth it all-in-all.  The whole thing flew by and everyone was friendly and enjoying themselves.  The wine genuinely was unlimited, we refused more than we drank - and we drank quite a bit - LOL!  They gave us water too at no extra charge - were friendly and hospitable, nothing was too much trouble.

I hope those of you who are going to try it have as much fun as we did.

BTW - you are right, it is virtually opposite the 2 music bars.  The restaurant is opposite where the Wok House used to be, just down from Armorada on your way to the sea front, right hand side.