Panos Greek Taverna on SE Marine Dr, Vancouver

My office celebrated the birthday of a colleague on a Friday. We ordered lunch from Panos Greek Taverna on SE Marine Dr which is 5 minutes drive away.

My colleague called up Panos Greek Cuisine to place the take out order at 11:00AM, when the restaurant opens for lunch. We told the restaurant that we will pick up our orders at 12:00PM. When one of my colleague arrived at the restaurant 5 minutes past 12:00PM, he was asked to wait. He waited for 20 minutes before our food were ready. That is how busy the restaurant is.
I had the Chicken Souvlaki which comes with Greek salad, potato, rice and tzatziki. All of us swapped the tzatziki with hummus except one but somehow, all our orders came with hummus. We preferred hummus as it goes better with the pita bread.

There were plenty of pita bread left over as most of us only had half a pita bread.

Here are some of the items that my colleagues ordered: Prawn Souvlaki. (more…)

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Stepho’s Souvlaki Greek Taverna on Davie St., Vancouver

Ben and I went for a walk at the north side of the False Creek on a gloomy Saturday morning. It drizzled before we started the walk and we were glad that we did not give up and continued with our walk. We walked 20,000 steps that morning.

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After the walk, Ben rewarded me with a good lunch. He brought me to Stephos. Since it was still 5 minutes before the restaurant opened for lunch, there was only one group of about 10 in line.

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Ben ordered Humous for our appetizer. It was garlicky.

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The humous came with three pillowy pita bread. The hummus and pita bread can be a meal by itself. (more…)

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Mykonos Greek Restaurant in Bellingham, WA

When Ben is back in Vancouver, he likes to make a day trip to Bellingham. Just for food and shopping. This has become a ritual to him. He likes to check out snacks that is not available in Vancouver.

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We had lunch at Mykonos Greek Restaurant in Bellingham. Mykonos is a chain restaurant.

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It was pretty quiet when we were there.

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We ordered from the Greek specialties menu. Ben had the Paidakia while I had the Souvlaki.

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Despite that the restaurant was not busy, service was rather slow. It took about 15 minutes before our first item arrived. First came some piping hot pita bread. We had to wait for our meal to be served to enjoy the pita because the tzatziki came with the meal.

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My Lamb Souvlaki. You can either have it with rice or fries. I prefer rice. The rice was flavourful. (more…)

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Ladies Lunch at Kisamos Greek Taverna in Steveston Village, Richmond

Emily, Marian, Lorna and I met up for lunch and get together in early October.

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We met up at Kisamos Greek Taverna at noon. Free 2 hours street parking available.

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The restaurant was not too busy yet when we arrived.

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We waited quite a while for Emily as she had to sent her daughter for a job interview. We ordered the Kisamos Platter for 2 to share among the three of us first since Emily was late. The Kisamos Platter for 2 is $40.95. First came the Greek Salad of onions, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, pickled chili and feta cheese.

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Next came the pita bread. The server did not bring the homous to go with the bread. When we asked for it, the server told us that the dip will come with the platter. We asked for the homous to be served first so that we can have  it the bread.

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The server brought out the homous and tzatziki dips for us. (more…)

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Tibisti Foods & Grill on Victoria Drive, Vancouver

Tibisti Foods & Grill has been on our wishlist for a long while. Ben had been away for business trips a lot. Finally we managed to go to Tibisti before his long assignment to Beijing again.

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Tibisti Foods & Grill is an all day grill which serves Mediterranean food and middle eastern food. It is a halal restaurant.

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We should have come on a Wednesday as the Roast Lamb Meal is at promotional price of $9.99 on Wednesday.

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There is nothing much on decoration in this restaurant. Just some tables and chairs which are spaciously set. I came here for the food and I’m not bothered by the decor as long as it’s clean.

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Ben ordered the Lamb Chop Meal for $14.99.  All the meal here is served with biryani rice, Greek salad, Tzatziki sauce and baked potatoes. Somehow, Ben’s plate is missing the baked potatoes.

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The server told us that the lamb chop is made with fresh lamb. There were 5 pieces of lamb chops. (more…)

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Stepho’s Souvlaki Greek Taverna on Davie, Vancouver

I have always heard that Stepho’s Souvlaki Greek Taverna is popular and the lines were legendary. Still I was amazed with what I saw.

Suanne and I decided to go to Stepho’s our Friday night out. Since we heard that the lines was long, we decided to be there early. We were already at Stepho’s at 4:45PM. I mean there should be no waiting for a table right? After all, how many people would eat at that time. Wrong!

While we did not have to endure waiting outside the restaurant, yet we still had to wait inside for 30 minutes. Shortly after we got seated, the lines began to form outside.

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By the time we left at close to seven, the line stretches over to the neighboring shop! Amazing, everyone seems to be patiently waiting. I think this is at least an hour wait for these people … most likely more!

For these people there is a two-stage line. One is outside and a smaller group inside the restaurant. It took us 30 minutes just waiting inside the restaurant. So just imagine how long this line will take.

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So Suanne and I was certainly excited to finally check out Stepho’s. It has all the signs of a very successful restaurant. For one, they had just celebrated their 20th anniversary last year. There were a lot of wait staff working at a furious pace. It seems like they barely are able to keep it all together.

The inside of the restaurant is larger than we thought. It was also very dark for the most part. It just happened that we were seated at the darkest table in the restaurant. I had to manually crank up the camera’s ISO setting to 1600. So the pictures here are rather grainy and soft.

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I tried their Greek white wine. There is a name for this but I just can’t remember what it is now. I did not like it. It tasted somewhat coarse and dry. This is $5 for a glass.

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You know what makes Stepho’s so popular? It’s their price and especially their humongous portions. Yet despite knowing that, we ordered an appetizer to share.

It is a Stepho’s creation called Toriboukes ($6) … or just cheese balls in English. It is served with … (more…)

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Greek Summer Festival 2009

The Greek Summer Festival 2010: June 29th to July 11th.

Suanne and I were invited by Amir, the Executive Director of the Greek Summer Festival, to the event to experience Living A Day The Greek Way.  Suanne and I had been having way too many invites these days but this was one event we could not turn down because we felt we had so much to learn.

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We met Amir and to our surprise, he had actually gotten the people behind the event together so that we could meet them.  Never in our imagination how much history there are behind this annual event.

The Greek Summer Festival had started as a one day event 23 years ago organized by the Greek Orthordox Community of East Vancouver.  The event’s main goal is to raise funds (this year they partner with Make a Wish Foundation) and to introduce to Vancouver the richness of Greek culture, traditions and FOOD!

They told us how this one day event grew from one-day event to an event that spans two weekends around Canada Day.  This year’s event runs from June 26th to July 5th.

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George Economous was our host of the evening who was gracious enough to spend two hours that day to bring us around the place and showed us the event behind the scene.  He he he … Suanne and I felt like we were on a guided tour of Greece!  We were so intrigued by the stories we are hearing we decided to learn more before digging in to the food.  But since this is a food blog, I gonna share with you the most important aspect of this festival … FOOD … especially …

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… LAMBS.   If there is only one thing we came away impressed, it was the lamb.  Being Chinese who generally finds lamb gamey, we ended up thinking of lamb in a much different light.

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The Greek Summer Festival sold a whopping 465 lambs within 10 days in the festival last year.  This year, they are on track to break last year’s count and I am not going to be surprised.  We met George “The Real Boss” (the person above is George “the Host”).  George “the Real Boss” is the man behind these lambs since the inception of the Greek Summer Festival.  Boy, he sure has lots of stories to tell and BBQ burn scars to show too!!

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They used to do this by hand and using charcoal but today they have a whole row of rotisseries imported from Greece that slowly cooks this.  It takes four hours of slow cooking to make each.  They use the very best New Zealand lamb because of the tenderness of the meat and of the consistent size.  They tried to use local lambs but gave up because it was best only during Easter period.

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They used to chop the lamb piece by hand.  It is impossible to keep up with the demands that they had introduced new ways and machines to do the job better and faster.

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Many people actually come to the Greek Summer Festival only for their lambs.  People would drop by the festival on their way home to pick the lambs on the spit up by the kilo ($32) or half-kilo ($16).

Some people even order the whole lamb.  That is $185 and is more than enough for 20 people.  They will cut it to your choice.  Sometimes there are customers who comes in a group and order an entire lamb to feast at the festival.  That would be fun!

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This is what Suanne and I had — the Lamb Dinner, Bone-In.  This is wonderful … perfecto in every aspect. (more…)

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Felicos on Leslie Rd in Richmond

Polly had mentioned a couple of times that she would like to try Greek food one day. So, we went to Felicos for lunch instead going for our early morning cake meet. Felicos only opens for lunch on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Fortunately, Polly’s off day is Friday.

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Felicos is located at 8140 Leslie Road, Richmond, at the corner of Leslie Road and Hazelbridge Way. It has a unique store front and you will not miss it. Felicos has a large sitting capacity. The wall is painted in earthy tone and the interior is decorated with a couple of columns. It has a very Greek feel to it.

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Since we were going for lunch, Polly and I had a nice walk at the northerm arm of the Fraser River, along River Road. It was a very sunny day and the water was so blue.

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Felicos often offers the above deals in the local newspapers. This clipping is from Richmond Review. We opted for the Felicos platter for two. It sounds like a good deal.

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To start off, Polly ordered a virgin cocktail called Cranberry Sunset for $3.25. It’s a combination of cranberry juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, lemon, lime and soda. It is very light and refreshing.

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I had a Mango Lada which is made of mango and coconut milk. The Mango Lada costs $3.95. It is so rich and creamy that I only manage to finish half of the glass.

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The platter for two starts off with a Greek salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, feta cheese and a single olive. The salad is fresh and refreshing. The feta cheese gives it a nice balance of saltiness. (more…)

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Vassilis Souvlaki Greek Taverna on Kingsway, Burnaby

For the good three quarter of this year, my work life had been consumed with what is called Project “ONE”. It was an important cornerstone for a series of ambitious projects that will put in place the world’s largest system that will manage and distribute “fares”. You probably have no idea how archaic existing aviation systems are — many of which are still done on mainframes with green-screen monitors. This is because aviation systems are one of the early adopters of computers and it had been that way for generations. So the so-called Project “ONE” goal is to move systems out of mainframes to an open system — sounds easy but it’s not.

The eight months of hard work were filled with daily voice, web and video conferences because the various teams are located in many parts of the world with the project managed centrally in Vancouver. There were quite a bit travel when face-time is required especially when it comes to plannings. Anyway, this blog entry is dedicated to the “boys and girls” who had so successfully rolled out a swanky new system which is getting rave reviews from airlines all over the world.

To the team members of Project “ONE” — this blog entry is for you.

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We had a little celebration for the successful execution of the project by having a lunch at Vassilis. Timing was bad such that we had been given directive that cost cutting is to strictly enforced because of the expected downturn in the aviation industry viz the meltdown of the financial sector in the US. Going to an Asian place is out of the questions because the white blokes would end up eating nothing. So, we eventually settled for Greek. It narrowed down to either Minoas or Vasssilis.

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We eventually decided on the Vassilis Souvloaki Greek Taverna. Vassilis is located on 6558 Kingsway in Burnaby. That is at the almost eastern end of Kingsway. Parking is plentiful in front of the building and you will not miss it along Kingsway.

Question for you all … does anyone of you know why the Greeks like blue and white so much? I mean, I know the colors on their flag is blue and white but why blue? Just about EVERY Greek restaurant I know paints their restaurant blue and white.

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Inside, it is really spacious with many sections and rooms. This is because this restaurant used to be a mansion of sorts eons before Kingsway became commercialized. All over the place … there are these little plants hanging all over the place. Geez … I was thinking how much time they had to spend watering them. Despite this, the interior were very bright because they installed sky lights (?) that allows natural sunlight into the dining rooms.

We went on a Friday afternoon. I expected lots of people but no, it was just half full the whole time we were there.

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Most of us took a lot of time figuring out what to order. Other than Souvlaki, many of us knows next to nothing about Greek cuisine. You know, hardly anyone ordered drinks at all.

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Surprisingly, they have a really tiny 2-page menu only. It makes the selection easier. I was not very sure but the menus we were given were perhaps just their lunch menu.

Most people will just order the most expensive item because the project is paying! I had planned for $40-$50 per person but according to the menu, $30 will cover it quite nicely.

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We got a couple of their Hot Appetizer Platter. It has spanakopita, kalamari, artichokes, “fektethes” and tzatziki. This one is $29 each which I thought was quite expensive and the most expensive item on the menu. (more…)

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