I visited the Mezes patio for the first time since 2019. I have ordered take-out from Mezes over the past 4 years.
We ordered the fakkes (lentil soup, $12), fried calamari ($22), spanakopita ($15), and ortikia (grilled quail, $15), as well as an apple daiquiri ($17) and a frappe iced coffee ($8).
I’m particular about spanakopita. This version was mediocre. The filo would have benefited from a brush of melted butter. The filling was too heavy on the cheese. I suspect the restaurant used frozen spinach. The spanakopita was underbaked and a little underfilled. Anemic.
Six of us went to The Greek Tycoon in Whitby last weekend. It’s a lovely little room serving conventional Greek with a reasonable wine list. All staff were attentive, especially our server Rianne. She was a delight to interact with. All of us were beyond thrilled to find well-executed Greek that didn’t involve Toronto traffic. We can’t go back soon enough.
Not sure if I’ll be able to make fun of Dr John’s photos after this, but here goes.
Rianna says Opa!
And then the rest. Lamb chops done perfectly medium rare, roast lamb, moussaka, and chicken souvlaki. Missing is the trio of your choice of dips and the look I gave our server when she asked if we wanted dessert.
Do you prefer the galaktoboureko at Serano over Athens? I tried it once and thought it was good, but it didn’t get me to change my allegiance to Athens, which admittedly is based on just longstanding habit.
My family prefers Serano’s Galaktoboureko. It isn’t my favourite dessert, so I’m buying it for relatives who like it more than I do.
I only buy Loukamades at Athens these days.
I don’t like Athens’ savoury pies or bougatsa. Athens and most other Toronto Greek bakeries don’t use enough butter or oil on their phyllo for our taste. We also like a taller spanakopita, that would be at least 8 cm thick.
I’m beginning to think the flat spanakopita and other pies at Athens may be a regional variation. My friend’s mother who is from Florina also makes a flat spanakopita with very little butter or oil.
We haven’t made Galaktoboureko at home since before I started posting on Hungry Onion, so I can’t post a photo of what we consider a good one!
It should be a light custard with a little semolina or Cream of Wheat to stabilize the custard. The filling shouldn’t be pasty. The filling should be similar to the filling in a high quality pasteis de nata.
Bougatsa has a thicker, heavier semolina custard centre, and is popular with my friends who come from northern Greece, Macedonia, or the Peloponnese. I didn’t know anything about it until I was 35.
The Serano Bakery Galaktoboureko is much closer to our family recipe.
The Menalon bakery on St Clair uses too much stabilizer on their Galaktoboureko. I realize that’s out of your way. I wouldn’t bother using that one as a comparison.
Volos, Petros or The Myth , if they have Galaktoboureko, might make a quality version.
I don’t think any Greek pastry shops are at the level of the really good pastry shops in Greece. Serano is as close as it gets on the Danforth for me. I haven’t visited any pastry shops in Scarborough.
Here are Serano’s mini walnut square baklava and mini almond roll baklava .
Tried Sophia restaurant by delivery apart from a delivery snafu (missed item by the restaurant and thankfully replaced and with a bonus dessert freebie) a great value proposition as they are part of the happy hour program as well with UberEats
Chicken shish was decent and the kebab wrap was seasoned well. I enjoyed the hayadari dip as well
Had another delivery order from Sophia this time I tried the liver. Decent spiced well. They seem to be going through growing pains as this is the second time they had an issue that required them to call me and they did throw in a freebie .
I am looking forward for the opening of Milos as their lunch prix fix was the go to for moi in Vegas
Milos in Montreal has a Sunday night prix fixe (or used to, I haven’t checked lately), and they used to also have a late night 3 course prix fixe on weeknights that was pretty good value for a restaurant like that, although the choices were fairly limited.
I wonder if the Toronto Milos will have the prix fixe.
I usually stick to the fried zucchini eggplant stack, grilled octopus, fried calamari, and tomato salad (Horiatiki/ village salad, not sure why Milos calls it their tomato salad, except maybe because they used to fly their tomatoes in from Greece).
I had a bad experience in Montreal where the server did a bit of a bait and switch with Market Price fish. The fish we ended up with wasn’t the fish he had shown us, and it was too much food for us, so it was a waste.
I tend to like shellfish more than finfish, anyways.
The Kakavia (seafood stew) at Milos is good. It isn’t on that menu that often.
