Breakfasts, picnic fare and snacks
Greeks don't generally eat breakfast , so the only egg-and-bacon kind of places are in resorts where foreigners congregate, or where there are returned North American or Australian Greeks. Such spots can sometimes be fairly good value (¬4.50-6.50 for the works, maybe even with "French" filter coffee), especially if there's competition. More indigenous alternatives are yogurts at a galaktopolío (milk bar), or cheese pies and pretzel rings from a bakery.

Restaurants
Greek cuisine and restaurants are simple and straightforward. There's usually no snobbery about eating out; everyone does it regularly, and it's still reasonable - typically ¬9-13 per person for a substantial (non-seafood) meal with a measure of house wine. Even if the cooking is simple, you should expect it to be wholesome; Greeks are fussy about freshness and provenance and do not willingly or knowingly like to eat frozen New Zealand lamb chops, farmed fish or prefried chips.

That said, there's a lot of lazy cooking about - especially in resorts, where menus are dominated by pizza, spaghetti, chops and "tourist moussaká" a dish heavy with cheap potato slices, and nary a crumb of mince.

Of late you find growing numbers of what the Greeks call " kultúra " restaurants, often pretentious attempts at Greek nouvelle cuisine with speciality wine lists, which tend to be long on airs and graces, and (at ¬17.50-23.50 a head) short on value. The exceptions which succeed have been singled out in the text.

When choosing a restaurant, the usual best strategy is to go where the Greeks go. And they go late: 2pm to 3.30pm for lunch , 9pm to 11pm for supper . You can eat earlier, but you're likely to get indifferent service and cuisine if you frequent establishments catering to the tourist schedule. Chic appearance is not a reliable guide to quality; often the more ramshackle, traditional outfits represent the best value. One good omen is the waiter bringing a carafe of refrigerated water, unbidden, rather than pushing you to order bottled stuff.

In busy resort areas, it's wise to keep a wary eye on the waiters , who are inclined to urge you into ordering more than you want, then bring things you haven't ordered. Although cash-register receipts are required in all establishments, these are often only for the grand total, and itemized bills will be in totally illegible Greek script. Where prices are printed on menus, you'll be paying the right-hand (higher) of the two columns, inclusive of all taxes and usually service charge, although a small extra tip of about ten percent directly to the waiter is hugely appreciated - and usually not expected.

Bread costs extra, but consumption is not obligatory; unless it is assessed as part of the cover charge, you have the right to send it back without paying for it. You'll be considered deviant for refusing it, but so much Greek bread is inedible sawdust that there's little point in paying extra unless you actually want to use it as a scoop for dips.

Children are always welcome, day or night, at family tavernas, and Greeks don't mind in the slightest if they play tag between the tables or chase the cats running in mendicant packs - which you should not feed, as signs often warn you They are wild and pretty desperate, and you'll need a doctor's visit and tetanus jab if they whack at a dangled bit of food and claw your hand instead.

Fish and seafood
Seaside psarotavérnes offer fish , though for the inexperienced, ordering can be fraught with peril. Summer visitors get a relatively poor choice of fish, most of it frozen, farmed or imported from Egypt and North Africa. Drag-net-trawling is prohibited from the end of May until the beginning of October, when only lamp-lure ( grí-grí ), trident, "doughnut" trap ( kyrtos ) and multihook line ( paragádhi ) methods are allowed. During these warmer months, such few fish as are caught tend to be smaller and dry-tasting, and are served with butter sauce. Taverna owners often comply only minimally with the requirement to indicate when seafood is frozen (look for the abbreviation "kat.", "k" or just an asterisk on the Greek-language side of the menu).

Given these considerations, it's often best to set your sights on the humbler , seasonally migrating or perennially local species. The cheapest consistently available fish are gópes (bogue), atherína (sand smelts) and marídhes (picarel), eaten head and all, best rolled in salt and sprinkled with lemon juice. In the Dodecanese, yermanós (same as Australian leatherback) is a good frying fish which appears in spring; gávros (anchovy) and sardhélles (sardines) are late summer treats, at their best in the northeast Aegean. In the north Aegean or around Pílio, pandelís or sykiós (Latin Corvina nigra , in French "corb") is caught in early summer, and is highly esteemed since it's a rock-dweller, not a bottom feeder - and therefore a bit pricier than the preceding. In autumn especially you may encounter psarósoupa (fish broth) or kakaviá (a bouillabaisse-like stew).

The choicer varieties, such as barboúni (red mullet), tsipoúra (gilt-head bream), lavráki (seabass) or fangrí (common bream), will be expensive if wild - anywhere from ¬26.50-41 per kilo, depending on what the market will bear. If the price seems too good to be true, it's almost certainly farmed . Prices are usually quoted by the kilo, and should not be much more than double the street-market rate, so if a type of bream is ¬14.70 a kilo at the fishmonger's, expect it to be not more than ¬30 at the taverna. Standard procedure is to go to the glass-fronted cooler and pick your own specimen, and have it weighed (cleaned) in your presence.

Cheaper seafood ( thalassiná ) such as kalamarákia (fried baby squid, usually frozen) and okhtapódhi (octopus) are a summer staple of most seaside tavernas, and occasionally mydhia (mussels), kydhónia (cockles) and garídhes (small prawns) will be on offer at reasonable prices. Keep an eye out, however, to freshness and season - mussels in particular are a common cause of stomach upsets or even mild poisoning.

As the more favoured species have become overfished, unusual seafoods , formerly the exclusive province of the poor, are putting in a greater appearance on menus. Ray or skate (variously known as platy , seláhi , trígona or vátos ) can be fried or used in soup, and is even dried for decoration. Sea urchins ( ahiní ) are also a humble (and increasingly rare) favourite, being split and emptied for the sake of their (reputedly aphrodisiac) roe that's eaten raw. Only the reddish ones are gravid; special shears are sold for opening them if you don't fancy a hand full of spines. Many a quiet beach is littered with their halved carapaces, evidence of an instant Greek picnic.

Vegetarians
If you are vegetarian , you may be in for a hard time, and will often have to assemble a meal from various mezédhes. Even the excellent standbys of yogurt with honey, tzatzíki and Greek salad begin to pall after a while, and many of the supposed "vegetable" dishes on menus are cooked in stock or have pieces of meat added to liven them up. Wholly or largely vegetarian restaurants, however, are slowly on the increase in touristy areas; this guide highlights them where appropriate.

Wines
Both estiatória and tavernas will usually offer you a choice of bottled wines , and many still have their own house variety: kept in barrels, sold in bulk by the quarter-, half- or full litre, and served either in glass flagons or the brightly coloured tin "monkey-cups" called kantária . Not as many tavernas stock their own wine as once did, but it's worth asking whether they have wine varelísio (barrelled) or hyma (in bulk). You should expect to pay ¬3.50-5 per litre, with smaller measures priced proportionately. Non-resinated wine is almost always more than decent. Retsina - pine-resinated wine, a slightly acquired taste - is also available straight from the barrel, though the bottled brands Yeoryiadhi from Thessaloníki, Malamatina from central Greece (often cut with soda water), and Cambas from near Athens, are all excellent and likely to be more consistent in quality.

Among the bottled wines available nationwide , Cambas Attikos, Boutari Lac des Roches, any white from Zítsa and the Rhodian CAIR products (especially the Moulin range) are good, inexpensive whites, while Boutari Naoussa and Kourtakis Apelia are decent, mid-range reds. If you want a better but still moderately priced red, go for the Merlot of either Boutari and Tsantali, or Averof Katoï from Epirus.

If you're travelling around wine-producing islands , however, you may as well go for local bottlings ; the best available guide to the emerging Greek domaines and vintners is Nico Manessis' The Illustrated Greek Wine Book . Almost anything produced on Límnos is decent; the Alexandrine muscat is now used for whites, the local límnio grape for reds and rosés. Thíra, another volcanic island, has a number of premium white products such as Ktima Arghyrou and Boutari Nykhteri, and the Gentilini Robola white of Kefalloniá is justly esteemed. Páros (Moraïtis) and Náxos also both have acceptable local vintages, while Crete is now beginning to have labels superior to the bog-standard Logado, such as Economou (Sitía) and Lyrakis (Iráklio). On Rhodes, Alexandhris products from Émbonas are well thought of, as is the Emery label with its Villaré white, and CAIR's dry white "2400".

Curiously, island red wines (except for Rhodes' CAIR Moulin and Emery Cava) are almost uniformly mediocre; in this respect you're better off choosing reds from the mainland . Carras from Halkidhikí does the excellent Porto Carras, while Ktima Tselepou offers a very palatable Cabernet-Merlot blend. Antonopoulos Yerontoklima (Pátra), Ktima Papaïoannou Nemea (Peloponnese), and Tsantali Rapsani (Thessaly) are all superb, velvety reds - and likely to be found only in the better kultúra tavernas or káves (bottle shops). Antonopoulos, Tselepos (Mantinia domaine) and Papaïoannou also do excellent mainland whites .

The other premium microwineries on the mainland whose products have long been fashionable, in both red and white, include the vastly overrated Hatzimihali (Atalánti, central Greece); Spyropoulos (central Peloponnese), Athanasiadhi (central Greece), Skouras (Argolid) and the two rival Lazaridhi vintners (Dhráma, east Macedonia), especially their superb Merlots. For any of these you can expect to pay ¬7-10 per bottle in a shop, double that at a taverna.

Last but not least, CAIR on Rhodes makes its very own " champagne " ("naturally sparkling wine fermented en boteille", says the label), in both brut and demi-sec versions. It's not Moët & Chandon quality by any means, but at less than ¬6 per bottle, who's complaining&

Cafés, cake shops and bars
The Greek eating and drinking experience encompasses a variety of other places beyond restaurants. Most importantly, there is the institution of the kafenío , found in every town, village and hamlet in the country. In addition, you'll come across ouzerís , zaharoplastía (Greek patisseries) and barákia .