Greek cooking runs to sizeable portions of lamb, pork and chicken, generously eked out with bread. Fresh salads are usually included. In the larger cities and centers you can, of course, get western-type dishes. Seafood and some interesting local cheeses are worth trying. Restaurant prices
on the whole are surprisingly cheap but very few of them offer table d'h&te ("blue plate") menus. In less pretentious places you can walk into the kitchen and choose your own dishes. In a provincial taverna you can eat for nearly half this price. Breakfast is served continental-style: coffee or weak tea with bread, butter and honey or jam. You may order eggs. Service is sometimes slow and uncertain in the lesser places; don't be shy, call loudly for the waiter by saying, "garson, parakalo", (waiter, please).
You will find unresinated wine (aretsinato) pleasant and inexpensive; beers are drinkable. Bottled water and soft beverages are excellent. The national beverage is ouzo, an aniseed wine spirit and you will surely want to take home a bottle. Drinking Turkish coffee, served in tiny cups, accompanied by a glass of cold water, is a national pastime, though not particularly cheap. You may order it in restaurants, after a meal, or drop into a kafenion (coffeeshop). Bottled mineral water (metallika nera) is excellent (ask for Nigrita, Sariza or Loutraki); drink it in preference to tap water. Avoid drinking after eating green figs or melons.