Side dishes are so varied we took two four-way cold appetizer plates ($9.95) to get at them, on top of our dinners. You could also order them individually or as take-out ($4.50/half-pint; $6.50/pint). The picks were falafel balls (incredibly crunchy and delicious), marinated mushrooms, skordalia (the garlic-potato spread here a little refined but with a deep, slow-developing dose of garlic), tzatziki (more intense garlic in a yogurt cheese/cucumber base), and thin strips of grilled eggplant with a dandy herbal flavor. I wasn't as crazy about the hummus (fresh flavor but not enough lemon and garlic), grilled mixed vegetables (underdone carrots), feta spread (too salty), and eggplant salad (salty and greasy, but eggplant lovers won't mind). Hot side dishes with dinner orders include many starch options, of which the pretty spinach rice has a distinctive flavor, and the thoroughly cooked beans in tomato sauce were classic. Mixed roasted vegetables were a fine example of real slow food, albeit stewed and overdone to American tastes.
The soup of the day was lentil ($2.95/cup; $3.95/bowl), refreshingly light with chopped celery and a meaty-tasting broth. Egg-lemon soup ($2.95; $3.95) was sharp yet creamy, one of the best around.
Drinks are the usual sodas and a good assortment of Poland Spring seltzers ($1.95), plus Greek beers and wines. Mythos ($2.50) is a nice, hoppy lager from Thessaloníki, and not at all the kind of thin, best-when-ultra-cold beer I expect from hot climates. Greek coffee and ice Greek coffee "frappes" are also available, the latter the energy drink of the gods. This is serious coffee iced with a foamy head — just the thing for galactobouriko ($2.75), rich custard inside delicate filo, so that the ultra-sweetness was somewhat buffered.
Service here is minimal since you order at the counter. But once you sit, dishes come out rather nicely and servers change roles smoothly. This is a family business that cares about its customers.
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I used to joke that at a wine tasting everyone ends up talking about the cheeses, and at a cheese tasting everyone ends up asking about the fruit. Sure enough, when my colleague MC Slim JB and I shared a recent meal, we ended up talking about craft cocktails: the latest form of spirituous connoisseurship.
I knew that young people were drinking their grandparents' cocktails, but I didn't know that young bartenders were studying century-old mixology texts, or that folks were whipping up homemade bitters in their basement laboratories.
Having come of age during the California wine revival and paid good attention to the microbrewery explosion, I lagged on the cocktail front. Bourbon, brandies, and Scotch are familiar territory, of course, but I wouldn't have entirely believed this new information if we hadn't gone to one of Slim's favorite haunts for a nightcap, which was . . . well, it's his passion, so keep an eye out for his byline on this subject. For my part, I am planning to take my reviewing out past the running critique of over-sweetened dating-bar drinks, whenever I find food accompanied by a serious list of cocktails. ^
Robert Nadeau can be reached atrobtnadeau@aol.com.
