Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240272
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LELIA ALBRECHT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GREEK'S IS THE PLACE TO GO TO FEAST
There are no doggie bags large enough to bring home from Greek's all I wanted to taste again.Greek's, in Blacksburg, is an old-timer now moved into a more spacious spot just across a square off Main Street from its old location. For me, it's not only a new location but a feast of new tastes and new sensations.
First, the appetizers, which do just what they're meant to do: They tease and whet your appetite for what's to come. By all means, be teased. Go with enough people to be able to share the spanakopetes and the tiropetes. Or the tiny, freshly deep-fried cheeseballs ($5.25).
In the spanakopetes, the contrasts of the sharp white cheeses and the bland spinach is a knock-out tasty bite in flaky phyllo rectangles, triangles and rolls ($3.50). They are a wonderful contrast to the quieter taste of the cheeses and shirred or chopped eggs in the tiropetes. Greek's makes a masterful martini, as well.
You cannot dine Greek and not have Avgolemo. The gentle jolt of this lemony soup ($1.75) and the contrast of its creamy-smooth base is pure heaven in a cup. Besides, a taste of the alternate choice, the soup of the day, quickly convinced my taste buds that vegetable soup is vegetable soup in any language.
My companion's Horiatiki Salad ($4.25), listed as a "traditional" Greek salad was stocked with the tiny black Greek olives, feta, Salonika peppers and Greek dressing.
For my dinner salad, I ordered the plain tossed green salad ($1.75; $2.85 for the large). This one seemed much better than ordinary with Greek's oil-and-vinegar dressing, which was suffused with a marvelous mix of oregano, mint and other herbs that my olfactory senses refused to communicate to me.
Every visit to Greek's causes some soul-searching when a diner tries to make a decision. Though there's a "regular" printed menu of nearly everything from soup to nuts, on each visit I turned to the attached list of Greek specialties for the main courses.
The classic Greek dish, Pastichio, though easily over-simplified as macaroni and meat sauce, is anything but. In reality, it includes the luxurious, white Bechamel sauce as well, and one recipe from a Greek cookbook even puts 12 eggs in the sauce. Fortunately for our respective cholesterol levels, Greek's doesn't.
It emerges, when you spoon into it, in a neat cross-section, with the white stripes of the Bechamel alternating with red of another sauce and the round tubular ends of the cut pasta. At $8.95, Greek's Pastichio, though marvelously tasty, is sinfully bad for one's girlish or boyish figure. But relax, the salads make up for everything.
Another entree worth attention is Arni Kokinisto ($8.95). This Greek specialty of meltingly tiny lamb's ribs is so tender that the meat falls off the bones into its rich, herbal red sauce of tomatoes, onions and a fragrant mix of herbs and spices. A bed of spaghetti drinks up the marvelous sauce.
Unfortunately, the vegetables du jour are remarkable only in their lack of distinguishing qualities: Lemon Potatoes, soggily oversteamed, are only slightly redeemed by the tiny zing of lemon. The soft, fat green peas, called "Greek Style," are far from it.
Besides the list of Greek specialties, the menu folds open to list appetizers, soups, salads, pastas, entrees and great-sounding open-face sandwiches (souvlaki, gyros, grilled marinated chicken), all made on pita bread.
Then there's pizza - three sizes for each, three different prices. A make-your-own pizza section even offers baby shrimp. Now that sounds like a luxurious idea for $5.50.
The menu does not list desserts. However, we asked about baklava and got a hefty square, the best I've ever tasted. But then, so is almost everything else at Greek's.
\ GREEK'S
221 Progress St. (between Main and Progress streets) Blacksburg 953-2743
HOURS: Monday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. (or later on big game weekends)
PRICE RANGE: $1.75-$13.10.
BEVERAGES: Soft drinks, tea, coffee, beer, anything mixed.
CREDIT CARDS: Visa, American Express, MasterCard.
RESERVATIONS? On big Virginia Tech game weekends.
NON-SMOKING SECTION? Yes
\ AUTHOR: Lelia Albrecht lived in Paris seven years, dining, cooking and writing on Western Europe for The New York Times, The Washington Post and numerous magazines.