Greek Isles is owned and run by the former staff of Nikos, in Brookline Village, which lost its lease. I had previously reviewed Nikos as one of the surprisingly few Greek-American restaurants that stuck to Greek food. Fortunately, Greek Isles, on the neat little restaurant row that runs parallel to Boylston Street in the Fenway, continues in that general style. However, the kitchen here must be smaller, and is perhaps differently equipped, since the kebabs have taken a surprising downturn (no grill?), while the fried appetizers and French fries are now spectacularly crisp and fresh (new fry machine?). The new restaurant is smaller in general, and has reduced service, but with some careful selections it can still whip up superb take-out or an excellent, inexpensive sit-down dinner for those at its seven tables and counter seating.
Appetizers here are a strong course, and some diners will do well to go straight for the appetizer plate ($12.75). The strength of this offering is the fried-zucchini sticks ($4.50/à la carte), especially when dipped in tzatziki ($3.95/à la carte) — one of the freshest versions of this cucumber-garlic-yogurt dish around. The skordalia ($3.95/à la carte), with even more garlic in whipped potatoes, is also an excellent dip, but I found that the taramosalata ($3.95/à la carte) — codfish roe whipped into a starch (usually bread crumbs, but here possibly more potato) — lacked oomph. You can also dip slices of fried eggplant ($4.50/à la carte) — good but a little greasy — and triangles of fresh pita in the various spreads.
What, no grape leaves on the appetizer plate? You have to order them separately ($6.75/small; $12.95/large), because they come hot under a light cream sauce. The large plate has 12 leaves, well stuffed with a piquant meat and rice mix — about as good as I’ve had them.
Soup is another appetizer possibility. The lentil option ($3.25) is a nice combination of slightly dry and earthy (but fully cooked) lentils with slightly-sweet tomato stock. And white-bean soup ($3.25) is a more conventional tomato-bean bowl — both bowls are a good size — but again, the white beans are fully cooked, something rare in restaurants these days.
Now, the kebab situation. This was a real strength of Nikos’s, but the kebabs I tried on two visits to Greek Isles were of chain-barbecue quality: they seemed to be overdone to the point of falling apart, but lacked flavor (were they pre-poached?). The best option here may be the lamb kebab ($14), which retains some of the lamb flavor and seems to have been marinated a little. They’re not like the old Nikos kebabs, but still pretty good, especially in the lunch portion, which brings one skewer’s worth of meat de-skewered and rolled into a pita with onions, tomato, and some of that terrific fresh tzatziki. The dinner portion gives you two skewers, a Greek side salad, and two other sides. The beef kebab ($13) also had some nice flavor, but was very overdone and dried out on my visit. The chicken kebab ($13) was not so tasty, dry, and overdone.
