The Original Seattle Greek Festival

A few weeks ago, I went with some friends to the Seattle Greek festival. This event was particularly exciting, mainly because I love food festivals and I love greek food. When I learned that there was going to be a greek fest in Seattle, it reminded me of the Taste of Danforth in Toronto, which I absolutely enjoyed! So, I knew that I must attend and started counting down the days.

The Saint Demetrios Greek Festival is located near the University district and held at a greek church. Greek food, jewelry, t-shirts, olive oil, pastries, dances and more are available at the event. We arrived early in the morning, just when it opened to avoid the crowd. In my opinion, this was the best time to go. The food would be freshly cooked, there wouldn't be any lineups and tables would be widely available.

You can purchase the food using tokens. Each token costs one dollar and a plate is sold for around 3-6 tokens. After walking around the courtyard where all the food stalls were, I decided on a plate of Pastitio, which is very much like Moussaka but with pasta underneath the bechamel sauce instead of just meat and eggplant. This was amazing. I ended up craving this dish for days afterwards. My craving eventually turned into a craving for shawarma though, which was satisfied with a take out from Gyro World.  My friend recently vacationed to Greece and commented that this Pastitio was better than the ones she had in Greece or Turkey.

AJ and K ordered the lamb souvlaki which I don't have a picture for, but among the four of us, we also shared an order of the Loukoumades and Calamari. Both were delicious. I talked about the loukoumades (honey balls) endlessly before that weekend because I was so excited to have it again. It is by far my favorite Greek dessert and when I was in toronto, I used to trek all the way to Danforth from North York just to get them. According to Wikipedia, Loukoumades are a kind of fried-dough pastry made of deep fried dough soaked in sugar syrup or honey and cinnamon. I like them more when they are sprinkled with cinnamon. The more cinnamon, the better.

I didn't have anything to complain about the calamari either. The breading tasted like a mix of greek spices and was salted evenly. The squid wasn't too tough to chew on like other calamari I've had in the past.

All in all, this was a wonderful experience and like I said, I ended up craving Greek food for days afterwards. Next year, I am sure to return and I would bring more cash to get myself more tokens for the baklava sundae and some of the greek pastries.

Saint Demetrios Greek Festival
Annual event
2100 Boyer Ave. East
Seattle, WA
206-325-4347
Admission: Free