My Greek Taverna

Restaurant: My Greek Taverna
Cuisine: Greek
Last visited: July 6, 2010
Location: Surrey, BC
Address: 6450 120th Street (Scott Road)
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4.5 (based on few items I tried)
Service: 4
Ambiance: 3
Overall: 4

Additional comments:

• Family owned
• Homemade, authentic Greek
• Large portions
• Friendly and attentive service
• 2 locations (Surrey and Coquitlam)
• Affordable
• Family atmosphere, kid-friendly
• Steaks and pastas available
• Variety of family platters or platter for 2
• Daily specials
• Dine in/Take-out
• Free parking
• Cash/MC/Visa
• Mon-Sun 4pm – 10pm

**Recommendations: Hummus & Pita, Taramas dip, Ribs, Chicken Souvlaki, roast potatoes… which is basically everything I ordered.

My Greek Taverna is a family owned Greek restaurant located in Surrey, BC. They actually have 2 locations, one in Coquitlam (which I didn’t know about) and the other in Surrey. The one in Surrey is in a very odd location and there’s honestly not much competition in the area. I came to the one in Surrey, which isn’t as popular and I don’t even know if locals know about it. Seriously, the place isn’t that busy and I don’t know why. I just think people think it’s dodgy because it always looks empty and closed from the outside.

I came here several years ago and it’s been at least 8+ years since I’ve come back. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it just fell off my radar and I usually think about New York New York Greek Restaurant when I’m craving Greek in the area. I actually forgot how good My Greek Taverna was and I’m so happy that I came back to visit it! The food is really good and I was very impressed. It’s one of those restaurants that should be a local favourite and for some reason it’s just not. I’m really happy when I come across little independent places that people don’t know about that serve solid food.

I had forgotten what the food was like, but my hopes going in weren’t high and I expected mediocre to standard Greek food. Even looking at the menu I was thinking “oh no, they do everything here” which means they must not do anything that well. They offer classic Greek specialties, pasta, lasagna, steaks, fish, escargot, and then chicken fingers and fries. It just looked like a mess of everything – a “confetti” menu.  However to my surprise everything I ordered was well prices, huge portions, home cooked, and just good!

On the table:

**Hummus & Pita - 4.5/6

• A mixture of chick peas, fresh garlic, lemon and herbs make a tasty dip $4.99 or side order (80z) for $2.99
• Seriously this was a very good hummus. It was homemade and very garlicky in flavour. It was almost smoky and it had a slight bite of  fresh garlic spiciness to it at the end. I feel like there was toasted cumin seeds in it and there was a nice tang from the lemon to brighten it all up. It was fresh, creamy and the portion was very generous. I didn’t see or taste many fresh herbs, but I didn’t care.
• I don’t know what’s up with this Greek pita, but it was awesome. It was grilled and crispy on the outside and soft and warm inside. I think they butter it before serving it which obviously makes it even better.

Taramas – 4/6

• Fish roe pate. Full order with pita $5.99. Or have it as a side for an additional $1 by ordering another full order dip of your choice.
• They also offer 8oz of Taramas for $3.29
• Seriously for an additional $1 – this was a total bargain.
• I was very surprised to see it on the menu because it’s a very traditional Greek dip that many restaurants don’t offer. I’ve only seen it served at Pasparo’s Greek Taverna in North Vancouver, which is one of my favourite Greek restaurants.
• Taramas is made of smoked cod roe, onions, olive oil, and lemon juice. It almost tastes like a tangy and rich smoked salmon mousse. It was creamy and fluffy and I just loved it. It has a very strong fish taste so if you don’t like that then this isn’t for you.

**Chicken Souvlaki – 5/6

• Broiled tender morsel of chicken marinated on a skewer $14.95
• This was a huge portion and it comes with rice, potatoes, Greek salad and tzatziki.

• I’ve never seen chicken souvlaki like this before. It was massive! It wasn’t small pieces of chicken, but huge chunks of it. It was so juicy, moist and well marinated with tons of flavour. It was nicely grilled so I could taste the smoky charcoal flavour and it had a perfectly crispy edge. There was tons of dried oregano and it was just really juicy. I didn’t even need the tzatziki sauce and I love that stuff.
• The rice was also very flavourful and well done. Not mushy or anything, it was a nice pilaf with carrots, onions and some celery.

• Greek salad - 2.5/6 they give you an ample amount of Greek salad and this one had red onions, cucumber, tomatoes, feta and even green peppers. The only thing is that it had one olive for the entire salad which was used as decor. It was also a very tangy salad and was a bit heavy on the vinegar.

**BBQ Rib Tails and Prawns – 5/6

• This was a special of the day for $15.95 With prawns $18.95
• This was gigantic! It was almost the width of the table and the portion was so generous. They gave about 5-6 rib tails and 5 prawns with Greek salad, rice, potatoes, and tzatziki sauce. Well worth it and it was all good!

• The rib tails were very lean but very tender. It tastes like the meat on regular baby back pork ribs, except leaner. They shredded away beautifully and it wasn’t chewy at all. Rather than pulling the meat off the bones, I pulled the ribs out of the meat. No joke. They were literally falling off the bone and I just plucked the bones (which are short rectangular flat stubs) out one by one.
• The rib tails were marinated in a sweet and tangy homemade BBQ sauce and I could taste some Bay leaf and probably some brown sugar being used. It was a gentle BBQ sauce so there was no bold kick. I could have used more sauce though, but i guess they didn’t want to overdo it.

• The prawns were slightly overcooked and very buttery in flavour. I could have done without them. I would prefer them to be at least seasoned with some dried Oregano, or have some Greek flavour to them. Still good, but nothing one couldn’t do at home.

• The Greek potato had a strong lemon flavour that was infused right into the core. It was so tender, creamy and soft and it absorbed all the flavours of fresh lemon juice and was very well seasoned with oregano, salt and pepper. It was roasted perfectly, not dry at all and the bottom had a crispy crust.
• I wonder how long they marinade the potatoes for because it was really tangy all throughout. It made it especially good with the tzatziki.

Desserts

Ecmek or Ekmek – 1.5/6

• $4.95
• Ecmek is a traditional Greek dessert and normally it would come with some kataifi on the bottom. There’s several versions of Ecmek and I think it just depends on the family recipe. The server told us this one was made with lady fingers, vanilla pudding and whipped cream. This was sadly, the most disappointing part of my dinner.
• It felt like a lazy Ecmek or one that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple days already. It was a whole lot of whipped cream, cinnamon sugar, and solidified pudding that was not good. It was almost like a gelatin pudding and it was so dense and not creamy at all.
• It’s supposed to be topped with toasted almonds too. However this one only had ONE single slivered almond on the whole thing… and that just did not “top” things off properly.

From the side it looked like lady fingers…

But no no, they’re not…

• Now I’m not Greek so I don’t know how it’s traditionally supposed to be made, but it tasted like white bread and it looked like the crusts of it. It was well soaked in a syrup so it was still moist and honestly the bread part was not bad, it was much better than the pudding part.
• I would much rather have the Ecmek from New York New York Greek Restaurant. The one as Pasparo’s Greek Taverna is the best though, it actually has Kataifi (shredded pyhllo pastry) on the bottom – authentically Greek!