Wednesday, October 22, 2008

A Viet Corner in Iraklio

Tu

While in Crete, I was wandering around Iraklio port and the shopping areas in the afternoon, the day before we left. I thought I saw something familiar from the corner of my eye and I turned my head to see an Asian restaurant called Lee's Asian Fast Food. Having been away from home almost 5 weeks, even though I was adapting quite well to feta cheese and other Greek food, what I missed the most was Asian food. I walked over toward the restaurant and sat down to order fried rice which looked really good in the photo.

Seafood fried rice

The waiter was Greek and I thought this would be a Chinese restaurant, which didn't bother me because I love Chinese food as much as Vietnamese food. While waiting, I heard someone speaking in Vietnamese behind me and I turned around. It was a little girl talking to her parents. I couldn't believe that I would meet a Vietnamese family in a place like Iraklio, so far from our homeland. I'd hardly seen any other Asians in some parts of Greece. I started up a conversation with them and it turned out they're from Tra Vinh, a southern city of Vietnam. They moved from there to Holland about 10 years ago but had moved over to Greece in the last 3 years.

Xuong Rong

Following what they told me, life in Holland was getting more expensive and hard for them, so they decided to move to Greece hoping for an easier life and they're happy with it now. Lee's is the only Asian restaurant in town(I think) so they don't really have much competition. I also noticed that most of the other customers were western people so I gathered that there are not many Asians in Iraklio. They also said that they have to buy lots of their ingredients from Germany as they don't have lots of choices in Iraklio. They had to serve fusion Vietnamese - Chinese food as not many people are familiar with Viet Nam and its food.

The food itself, fried rice and spring rolls, was actually pretty good.

Ps: I can't upload any photos from Lee's restaurant as I lost them all due to virus attack on my hard drive.

5 comments:

Paul Simko said...

I love Asian food, and my favorite place to eat it where I am from is also called Lee's!!!

Great photos!

Van Cong Tu said...

Thanks Charley.

Anonymous said...

That's my uncle!:) (He told me to read this haha!) I live in the Netherlands and i visite them once a year. Actually my uncle already came to the Netherlands 25 years ago. He married his wife 10 years ago in Vietnam and she came to the Netherlands too. Well great blog and nice photos:)!

Anonymous said...

Hi there, that's the only one small Vietnamese Restaurant in Hiraklio and it's belongs to Mr. Bruce Lee, he's the man who can make foods. DELICIEUS: Just Made 4 U by Mr.6U. By Zwollyman

Van Cong Tu said...

Hi Anonymous ,
It was great having some Viet food in Europe