By: Teddy Espinosa

This past Friday, my friends Kyna and Sarah went out to get some BBQ food from a place called the Potbelly on Ermou Street. It is not far from the apartments (about a 4-minute walk) and is quite small but full of personality. It has a very American Californian style to it, making us feel a little bit at home far, far away from home. They served mainly just pulled BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches with a lot of unique ingredients to separate them from a more traditional American food chain. For example, the sandwich that I had got, called the “Drop It Like Is Hot,” had pulled pork, bacon, a fried egg, halloumi cheese, and jalapeno sauce.

 I won’t say that it was the best BBQ food I have ever had, but as a kid from Colorado who hasn’t eaten anything relatively quite this American in almost 3 weeks, it was heaven! It was pleasantly surprising and had enough spice to it to scratch my spicy needs. I have never heard or thought about putting eggs onto anything BBQ-related, but it wasn’t half bad. Egg just tends to pull the flavor out of many dishes, whether it is a burger or sandwich, but with the loads of flavor of BBQ, it doesn’t affect it that badly. The onion rings were also top-notch and tasty.   

            Another great thing about this restaurant was the heavy rap influence that it had. The restaurant was playing rap music, and all of the sandwiches were named after great rap songs of the 90s and early 2000s’. The names were as follows; Gangsta’s Paradise(Coolio),

Juicy(Notorious B.I.G.), Drop It Like Is Hot(Snoop Dogg), Hypnotize(Notorious B.I.G.), Losing

Control(No Idea), Ready or Not(Fugees), Mrs. Jackson(OutKast), I Got 5 On It(Luniz),

Fu-gee-la(Fugees), Lose Yourself(Eminem), Money Trees(Kendrick Lamar), California

Love(Tupac), All Eyez on Me (Tupac), Still D.R.E.(Dr. Dre), The Next Episode(Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg), and a build-your-own option. It is very California-like, even though they have the Notorious B.I.G., who mainly represents the East Coast of rap music. It is interesting to me to see something quite like this in Larnaca and Cyprus as a whole. There seems to be a fair amount of rap culture thriving in Larnaca. When I am walking down the boardwalk, I can hear Tupac, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and many other influential rappers being played at different restaurants and speakers along the beach. Being a big fan of ’90s’ and 2000s hip hop, it really puts a smile on my face whenever I hear it. If you are worried about coming to Cyprus and being in a complete culture shock, do not fret and go with the flow as all of Larnaca seemingly does!