The Real Greek Souvlaki and Bar

[olly s]

I am making my virginal trip to The Real Greek Souvlaki and Bar tomorrow night. Who's been and what did you think??

[circeplum]

very busy, noisy, lots of sound reflecting hard surfaces. food by no means a priority ...

it's yer basic greek fast food, just upped a step or two, hence, uh, souvlaki (pleasant enough), pastourma (cured sirloin, nasty), greek cured ham, octopus in sweetish tomato sauce, good breads. booze absorbent stuff.

nice for a piss-up; not so great for a nosh-up.

m

[olly s]

sounds okay - what about booze? I read something about ouzo cocktails the other day, but know nothing about Greek wines?

[circeplum]

don't know much about them, but the ones i tried here (greek golden wine, i think it was called) and at its sister gaff the mezedopolio (?) were really surprisingly good. and not retsina-ey at all.

m

[olly s]

I haven't been to the Mezzodoplio either. Where do you reckon I should head first / which is better ( = more fun & better value) ??

o

[circeplum]

i liked the meze-however-you-spell-it better: it had a better list of food (and i'm greedy) and was a funkier place to be - i think it used to be a working man's mission hall but it looks really cool.

in both places, loads of greek wines by the glass or little flask, so room for experimentation.

it's less frenetic and noisy which i prefer, but it's still got a buzz.

m

[Bloated]

as their names suggest souvlaki is focused on er, souvlaki and mezedopolio has a much wider range of meze dishes. That is the food difference. Souvlaki is better decorated although that isn't saying much...

Real Greek website

[olly s]

thanks one and all.

[circeplum]

Real Greek website

hurrah! now i know how to spell mezedopolio!

m

[Gavin Jones]

I think it would be hard to stay at the Souvlaki bar longer than it takes you to drink whatever you're drinking (in my case around 45 minutes for a bottle of ok Tselepos cab/merlot). A couple of pre-kebab snacks (liked the rough prosciutto) followed by a kebab is about it. unless you like spending time surrounded by drunk 20 somethings with hard surfaces and uncomfortable seats.

[mrshugget]

Also: the smoky Souvlaki restaurant smells incredibly authentic - and so will you afterwards. Your xlothes and hair will stink of grilled meats! It is very cheap and cheerful but the Mezo-wotsit has a much better selection of (very good) Greek wines, nicer things to eat and a more civilised atmosphere - i.e. you can hear what your companions are saying.

[magnolia]

I went last night in fact, and I thought the food was very good indeed; the service sweet, but dizzy (we arrived when the restaurant was empty, didn't like where we were seated, and asked to move...our waitress said she would ask the manager and then she disappeared so a few minutes later, I went and asked the manager myself who obliged; then the waitress came back three times to verify our order, and seemed totally flummoxed by the fact that one of our party - see below - was a veg-and-fruit only vegetarian.

However, my real "problem" is that the portions are incredibly small, for dinner anyway...which makes the low prices deceptive.

Round of appetizers consisted of miniscule vine leaves (dolmades) which were in fact the size of grapes; gigantic fava beans in a delicious tomato-based sauce..there were big for beans, I'll admit - but there were only a few on the plate. A tiny portion of three matured cheeses in red pepper sauce; and a very small bowl of olives. They charge for the Greek flatbread, which is somewhat like pita - and comes pre-torn into small triangles. One person could polish off an order. So in fact we ended up ordering more appetizers.

Mains - the guys ended up ordering two mains each - and they're not exactly he-man types. The only main that was a normal size was the fillet of fish. The souvlaki is a short skewer of lamb cubes or chicken, on a very small piece of bread. There is an option for a 'double' which would be two short skewers on one piece of small bread.

The women ordered yet more appetizers. One of the women was a veg-and-fruit only vegetarian (ie. no fish, chicken or meat) and she had a lot of trouble finding something to eat. We thought there might be a dinner sized salad, but all mains consisted of meat, fish or poultry. There were four starters that fit the bill but she had to order two of each @ £3-4 apiece in order to take the edge off, then lots of bread. They had one vegetable salad that was about half the size of a normal dinner side salad. Wines - and there are a nice selection of Greek ones - come in a choice of bottle; 500 cl; or 250 cl carafes. The latter resemble salad dressing cruets (we thought our red & white were actually oil & vineagar before we realised this was the wine!) and as the glasses they use are water glasses, even though this should be more than enough for two wine glasses' worth, it *seems* much less.

Puddings: I had the heavenly yoghurt with honey & walnuts but would have loved twice as much; but at £3.75 a serving I felt silly ordering a £7.50 dessert consisting of yoghurt, honey and walnuts.

As mentioned, the prices seem really low - £3-4 for appetizers; not much more for some of the mains; and desserts at £3-4 or so. Cocktails (we didn't order but they seem to consist of punches & Martinis using Greek spirits, juices & liqueurs) were pretty reasonable too - in the £5-6 range? Didn't see any wines for more than £30 I think.

We ended up spending £120 for four people and not a lot of food. We had thought, looking at the prices, that we would be in for a nice surprise in terms of price/quality/quantity ratio. No dice. As mentioned, the quality of the ingredients was high. And of course I'm much happier to be served small portions of decent food than large portions of crappy food. But I'd only go back for lunch.

[olly s]

i still absolutely stink of fried meat - i left the restaurant 16hrs ago and I still have a pack of hounds chasing after me ... really good place though, and very cheap. appreciated the fact that it was the real greek himself who put together my souvlaki, not that he will be around very much apparently. the bread and the wine was really good - anything more was a bonus.

[Matthew Grant]

Walking back from Tate Modern towards Borough Market last Friday i was contemplating Tapas at Brindisa when I walked past the Souvlaki bar and grill on South Bank. The smell grabbed me from about 100 yards away, I had a smell flashback to proper Gyros in Greece from when I worked in Falaraki years before it was turned into a TV show

A jug of lager and a couple of Souvlaki seemed like a good idea so we dashed in and forced down the bloody awful Alfa beer and ate our appaling Souvlaki. Dry old bread wrapped in paper as in the previous pictures. They were being turned out like McDonalds turns out Burgers, sat on the side waiting to be served. Luke warm, flavourless lamb, far to chewy to enjoy properly. The Tzatski lacked garlic and the tomato sauce was flavourless. Interestingly there was no smell at all in the restaurant but when we walked outside 30 minutes later the fantastic smell was back! Are they piping Gyros fragrance into the air to attract customers.

Overall, dreadful. I shan't return.

[Champagne Sadie]

When will people learn?

Greek food tastes great in Greece - crappy and expensive anywhere else.

[Clerkenwellian]

Walking back from Tate Modern towards Borough Market last Friday i was contemplating Tapas at Brindisa when I walked past the Souvlaki bar and grill on South Bank. The smell grabbed me from about 100 yards away, I had a smell flashback to proper Gyros in Greece from when I worked in Falaraki years before it was turned into a TV show

A jug of lager and a couple of Souvlaki seemed like a good idea so we dashed in and forced down the bloody awful Alfa beer and ate our appaling Souvlaki. Dry old bread wrapped in paper as in the previous pictures. They were being turned out like McDonalds turns out Burgers, sat on the side waiting to be served. Luke warm, flavourless lamb, far to chewy to enjoy properly. The Tzatski lacked garlic and the tomato sauce was flavourless. Interestingly there was no smell at all in the restaurant but when we walked outside 30 minutes later the fantastic smell was back! Are they piping Gyros fragrance into the air to attract customers.

Overall, dreadful.  I shan't return.

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I had a pretty decent meal at the original branch on St John Street soon after it opened. Went again recently and had a similar experience to yours. I should have been warned off by the menu, which is an awful chain-restaurant effort, with cartoon-style pictures of the food.

Is this greedy over-expansion by the people who bought the rights to the Souvlaki outlets? Has anybody been to the mothership on Hoxton Market recently? The Mezedopolio used to be great for reasonably priced grazing, although the service was always a bit erratic.