Travel Tales
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| No matter where you travel, get the true price of a meal before you order "by the kilo"...so you'll know if it's worth the weight. |
Fishy Scales
I realize you no longer offer guidebooks on Greece (too bad!). However, after spending a few days in Athens, we felt that there were some fairly prevalent rip-offs that other guidebooks are not warning anyone about. One is restaurants that offer fish by the kilo.
We stopped off for lunch at the Four Brothers restaurant in Piraeus (not a fancy place at all) and ordered four beers, four Greek salads and four very small fishes (barely one portion per person) and were presented with a lunch bill for 240 euros — more than $350! They claimed the fish we ate weighed 3.6 kilos, or approximately 8 pounds. We protested the bill (other restaurants told us 4 such fish could not have weighed more than 300 grams apiece) and asked them to weigh four identical fish. They got out fish that were much bigger (and could have fed four easily) and put those on the scales, refusing to weigh fish like the ones we ate (their English also deteriorated at that point).
Never, ever order fresh fish by the kilo in Greek restaurants unless you watch them put your fish on the scales — and negotiate the price in advance!
— Amy in Austin, TX
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