Taverna Dionysos, ‘Psara’, Messonghi, Kerkyra (Corfu), Greece

I’m very sorry. I’ve been a rubbish blogger for the past couple of weeks, as I was on me ‘olidays. Fortunately it was somewhat of a working holiday and so I now have a bunch of juicy Greek bogs to review.

This excellent toilet is in an even more excellent restaurant in a place called Psara, which literally translates as ‘fish’ (I’ve been learning Greek). Psara is in the south east of Kerkyra which unfortunately attracts far more of the idiot type holidaymakers than the classier north part of the island. I’ve witnessed English tourists come in to the Taverna and ask if sunday roasts were available. NO! YOU ARE IN GREECE! WAIT ‘TIL YOU GET HOME FOR FECK’S SAKE!

Greek cuisine is among the best in the world, and however much I love a good British sunday roast, we really cannot compete with Mousaka, Kleftiko, Pastitsada, Stifado (I’m drooling now). Why would you fly all the way to Corfu to eat something you’d get in any shit pub back home? I found the answer from Robert, one half of the awesome couple who run this place and also the man behind the super toilets, which I will get to eventually by the way. A British tourist came to him this summer and asked which part of Greece they were in. He told them they were in the north-west. They asked what the place was called! He told them they were in a village called Messonghi on the Island of Corfu. They exclaimed: ‘we’re on an island!?’.

I hope you readers find this as sad and shocking as I do, and it’s given me an idea. I propose that when a person books a holiday on the internet for example, an essential part of the booking process should be that they must locate their proposed destination on a blank map of the world. I wouldn’t be too harsh, there would be borders and a compass etc, just no country names. I’d give them some leniency, but if they got the continent wrong, for example, they would have to start the booking again. And go and find a bloody atlas.

I think the tourism council, or whoever it is who makes rules about this sort of stuff should really put my idea into place. It would encourage people to educate themselves a little in geography and it would weed out the idiots who think that China and Japan are the same thing, that all the popular European holiday destinations are lumped together somewhere south of Heathrow, and don’t really care anyway as long as they can get a bacardi breezer, a sunday roast and spectacular sunburn.

Whew.. so back to the point here.. At Taverna Dionysos one can only get real Greek food, and it’s some of the best on the Island. The restaurant is simply and tastefully decorated (including the toilets), and the staff are some of my favourite folk ever.

The toilets here are reassuringly solid. The big stone tiles, the warm green walls and rustic accesories make it a very comfortable place to drop off your moosekaka. All the fittings are lovely and tasteful, the ‘Ladies’ sign on the door is just brilliant and thankfully there is a mosquito screen over the window. I like small insects generally (hate it when they get big and boisterous…flying cockroaches can fuck right off), but mosquitoes all need to die asap. They are pure evil, they not only suck out your blood, they spit into you! This is unacceptable behaviour, even for an insect.

ooh, rusticy!

This is a great bog, but more importantly a great restaurant, as the most satisfying toilet business is the result of excellent food and drinkable Retzina (Retzina is most often undrinkable, so this is a compliment). Congratulations Emi and Robert. I’m missing you already. Almost as much as I miss your feta bread.