YASSOO... My Favorite Greek

YASSOO... My Favorite Greek

Is there anything better than the neighbourhood restaurant, the one close to your house, where you know all the waiters and you know who is nice and who isn’t...  where no matter when, why and how, it’s always fun to eat there? That’s how we feel about LEMONIA – a Greek place I found on the web when I was looking for a meat/grill restaurant, the closest I can find to resemble Middle Eastern/Mediterranean meat eateries back home.

16:30: Web search brings up positive results – restaurant just near home (yay!) no need to take the Tube (yay! Yay!)

16:35: They have a table for 2 for tonight (yay! Yay! Yay!) (In London, you need to book everything in advance).

I confess I have a weak spot about meat eateries. I love their thing, the smell hits just the right spot, and when it comes with good hummus, a well-dressed salad and a fun service without being obnoxious – I become a happy woman.

19:30: Leaving home, not taking even my bag, I-Phone in my pocket, I’m on my way.

19:34: Met my beloved out of the Tube near our home, we have 3 minutes to walk until we get there.

19:37: Scanning the impressive array of stickers on the restaurant door – Zagat (link) and other restaurant recommendation books/sites.

I’m ready to rock!

A lovely hostess smiles at us at the entrance, carrying a platter full with olives, carrot sticks and pieces of radish. It’s amazing to see that the restaurant is COMPLETELY FULL from end to end (and it’s a big dining hall), and the place is teeming with lively activity – just like you’d imagine a true Greek Taverna. They have not only tables for couples or foursomes, but also round tables that can seat around 10 people, and it seems that they encourage people to arrive in big parties, whether for a birthday or any other festive event, and doesn’t try to cater mainly for couples who only come to eat and move on to somewhere else. All the waiters here are men who seem to be professional waiters after the European tradition – older and more cheerful and smiley than the typical youngster hipster-but-eternally-frustrated types that you meet in most London restaurants.

19:40: Nibbling on the olives and trying to decide what to order. The menu includes an awesome range of starters and mains such as: various fish, seafood, shashlik (skewers), grilled meat, stew, and so on and on.

The important decision arrived and so did the lovely waiter – for starters we ordered a plate of hummus (£4.85), pitta bread (£1) and zatziki (£4.85). Every person from the Middle East who lives abroad knows that good hummus is hard to come by. Now, I don’t pretend to be a big expert in hummus, and I’m sure some people will criticize me for what I’m about to say, but – I liked Lemonia’s hummus. It tasted like hummus! (and not sand / a weird paste with strange lumps), the olive oil suited it well – it turns out you don’t need to go into the depths of Edgware Road or Marble Arch to find decent hummus in London.

The zatziki doesn’t disappoint us either. The sourness of the yoghurt and lemon refreshes our mouths and opens our appetites for the meat, which is now on the grill and will soon land in our plate.

For main I ordered spring chicken (£12.50) – I know the name sounds quite horrible when you read it literally, but it’s actually a very well-known dish in UK – a young grilled chicken, the meat is juicy and moist and melts in your mouth, and it comes of course with the smell of grill which I love so much. So as not to go too much over the top I ordered a salad side dish (and not chips, rice, or something like that) – after all I had the hummus + pitta bread to start with J

20:00: Do not disturb... I’m having fun eating with my hands!

My beloved ordered a lamb shashlik with rice as side dish (£14.00). The meat was very juicy, and was seasoned correctly so that it didn’t overrule the gentle taste of the lamb. I also liked the vegetables that came between the pieces of meat and I couldn’t stop stealing his roasted caramelized onions, in other words – a success!

20:30: Hard to say goodbye to my plate... it was so good I’m ready to do it all again...

For desserts we decided to get a bit more crazy and we ordered a piece of baklava (£3.85), one for both of us to share, and of course espresso (£1.70). Before they served the dessert they placed on our table two cubes of Turkish Delight, with sugar icing on top. I love Turkish Delight and can eat whole boxes of it – luckily we only got two.

As the baklava was put on our table my beloved started cutting it nonchalantly, but I cried ‘wait! Cut me a half!’ – I’m a little greedy about deserts... I can’t compare this baklava to other places, but from my perspective it was the best in the world. The puff pastry was crunchy and melted in my mouth at the same time, the pistachios were delicious, and the honey was sweet sweet sweet. A pleasure.

I think by now you got the idea that I warmly recommend the LEMONIA, and if after eating there you are feeling some guilt, you can always go to nearby Primrose Hill (link), the tallest hill in London which is 2 minutes walk from the restaurant, where you can climb and enjoy the stunning view.

Now you can jump around to get the food down :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbZ5T0x6YO8

How to get there?

Tube: Chalk Farm

89 Regents Park Road

NW1 8UY

London

+44 (0)20 7586 7454

** Small but important tip: see the rail line on the map? There’s a bridge over them that for some reason doesn’t appear on any map – but it will wonderfully shorten your way to the restaurant.