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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews.
Close observers of the metro food scene will recall that owner Maria Bell opened the first Greek Paradise in a tiny strip-center storefront in the village of Radcliff near Fort Knox. The food was so good, and the style of the place so casually lovable, that hungry pilgrims eagerly made the hourlong trek southwest to enjoy it ... and begged Mrs. Bell to move her restaurant up to the city. Eventually she complied ... but as too often happens when a restaurant (or any small business) suddenly changes scale, it lost something in the translation. A far larger space, sprawling over the sizable building that had long housed the old Min's Cafe (jocularly known as "Dirty Min's") required a different set of large-kitchen and service skills that hadn't been needed in Radcliff, and frankly, the challenge seemed too daunting for management consistently to overcome. Greek Paradise soldiered on, but it just wasn't what it used to be. But now Mrs. Bell, citing the departure of two-thirds of her family staff - her brother and her daughter - to jobs and school in other places, has moved again, this time back to a tiny, funky spot with an apartment-size kitchen, a setting much more like the original. Several early visits to the new spot - now dubbed Greek Paradise Café - have found the Greek fare on top of its form. And if the service is a little more unpredictable - oh, heck, let's make that a lot unpredictable - it comes from a warm heart, and from hands bearing very fine food. That makes up for a lot. I find it helpful to think of a meal at Greek Paradise as a visit to a Greek family's home, where the mother is eager to welcome guests and make them feel comfortable, but she's really too busy cooking to offer more than a quick smile and hello. So you clear your own spot at the table, enjoy the television or music on the radio, and wait for something really good to be placed before you, knowing that you'll enjoy it whether it's exactly what you ordered or not. We dropped in for a couple of lunches and also went by for a roast lamb dinner on the official Grand Opening night, an occasion for which one would assume that management would have straightened up a bit. A big black barrel smoker was set up out front, and wonderful aromas were emerging from its puffing chimney and leaking out around the door. Inside, the smells were even more appetizing, but some other things didn't seem quite ready for prime time. Mrs. Bell and the chef (a Greek guy with a bristly Arafat-style beard and a blue bandanna tucked around his head like a cap) were both bustling around, smiling, but seemingly trying to avoid eye contact. A couple of customers waiting for takeouts (which seem to be the primary source of Greek Paradise's business) averted their eyes, too, causing me briefly to wonder if I had spinach between my teeth or maybe had forgotten to put on my pants or something. No one asked us what we wanted or if we would like to sit down. Being bold, I thought about taking a seat at one of the half-dozen tables in the smallish, two-room dining section, but they all had ... things ... on them. One table was covered with dirty dishes. Another bore a telephone book and a plastic shopping bag full of papers. Another sported kitchen gear, and a fourth was occupied by a funny bright purple electronic thing with a wire leading to an "octopus" collection of multiple wall plugs. This all seemed like a strange way to set up for a "grand opening." Finally Mrs. Bell caught her breath, came over and invited us to sit down, whisking the telephone book and bag off the corner table. Oops! The telephone booth was stuck to a grease spot on the blue-and-white-checked oilcloth tablecloth. She dabbed at it with a paper towel and waved us to seats. A number of computer-printed sheets of paper on the front-room wall mentioned specific items: Fresh lamb gyros dinner or pork gyros dinner, $7.99; fresh chicken gyros dinner, $6.99. (Note well, by the way, that "Gyros" ["Γυρος"] is a singular noun in Greek. Calling for a "Gyro" will either get you a helicopter or label you as a rube.) A kalamari (squid) salad is $6.99, an Italian (!) sausage casserole $6.50. The lunch menu offers gyros from $4.50 (for lamb, beef, pork, chidken, sausage or fish) to $4.99 (for salmon or grilled veggies). Side dish options for lunch and sinner include hummus or baba ganoush ($3.50), Greek spinach pie ("spanakopita," $3.50 large or $2.50 small) and Greek salad ($4.99 large, $3.50 small. Desserts, including the familiar baklava and the deliciously exotic kataifi, more about which anon, are $1.85. Soft drinks and bottled water are available from a cooler, but no beer, wine or liquor is served. (Mrs. Bell says she has applied for a license, but must start the lengthy process anew, as regulations don't permit moving the license from a prior location.) We weren't offered menus, however. Mrs. Bell annoucned "Dinner!" and we nodded. She bustled off, and soon we heard clanking noises from the kitchen. After a while a couple of other groups came in, looked suspiciously at the tables, and took seats after she darted out of the kitchen and cleared space. We people-watched and listened to the music ("Soft Rock" channel on satellite radio, mostly '70s classics). Eventually Mrs. Bell came back bearing a big shiny purple earthenware plate full of wonderful things: A big piece of grilled golden-brown chicken. Three beautifully seared lamb chops. Roast potatoes. Roast summer squash. And a big Greek salad of iceberg lettuce, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, green peppers and black olives, all topped with a generous slab of tangy feta cheese dusted with herbs. One plate. No utensils. No beverages. (We later scared up a bottle of water and two paper cups.) She saw me looking at the plate uncertainly, and ran to get two sets of utensils, rolled in paper towels and secured tightly with Scotch tape. But we still had just one plate. Should we put it in the middle of the table and share? There certainly seemed to be enough for two, so we started forking up food as fast as we could go. I try some salad, some potatoes, some squash. I'm just about to start in on the meat, when ... d'oh! Out she comes with another plate, just like the first but about 10 minutes later! Everything was good. The lamb smelled and tasted delicious, but the chops had been cooked earlier and left to cool to room temperature. They were intensely flavorful, but perhaps the toughest I've ever eaten. I wouldn't have thought it possible for lamb, a delicate meat, to be that tough. Still, the taste was magnificent, so good that the other issues faded into insignificance as we ate. The chicken and grilled veggies were fine, too, although it was all room temp. We were about halfway through the meal when she bustled back out again, this time bearing a plate with two big warm toasted pitas. Amazing pitas, thick and fresh and hot, so white and rich that they tasted like shortened pastry. Then the chef came out and offered a little sample crock of baba ganoush, a favorite Mediterranean dish, similar to hummus but made with chopped eggplant instead of chickpeas (and, in his idiosyncratic variation, mayonnaise in lieu of the usual sesame-seed tahini paste). He accompanied it with a long dissertation about how this dish is made different in every part of the Mediterranean, but his recipe is from Crete, which by the way was the first constitutional government in Greece. At some point he somehow segued into Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism, but we were too busy eating to be quite sure how we got there from here. Eventually we plowed through it all, then sat around for about a half-hour, hanging out and wondering whether we would be offered dessert and coffee. Mrs. Bell bustled through several times, but the place had gotten pretty busy by then - all the tables were occupied and a lot more people were standing in the front waiting for takeouts. Finally the chef came out, smiling, and said, "Want some Kataifi?" Some whut? This proved to be a wonderful Greek dessert, a pastry that looks a bit like Shredded Wheat but tastes much sweeter. A nest of finely shredded phyllo pastry is rolled into a cylinder around chopped walnuts, almonds and pistachios, with a little chocolate sauce squirted into the middle and a little honey poured over the top. And Greek coffee, of course. I ordered a cup, thinking of the tiny espresso cups we used to get at sidewalk coffee shops when we lived in a Greek-immigrant neighborhood in New York City. Uh uh. This was an oversize blue earthenware cup, filled to the very brim with strong, sweet coffee, Greek style with fine grounds suspended in it to give it the kind of strength and body that will grow hair on your bouzouki. It was great with the dessert, but boyoboyoboy, was it ever strong. It had my eyes vibrating in my head for three hours, and I think I finally got to sleep about 48 hours later. At the end of the evening, the meal was so good, the people so nice, and the prices so cheap (all that food for $22 plus tip) that we couldn't help feeling good about the experience, frustration and all.
Greek Paradise Café is located in the small building set back a few feet from Frankfort Avenue near the Clifton railroad crossing, just behind the old neighborhood grocery store building that's now home to Nancy's Bagel Grounds. The decor is on the low-budget, homespun side, with blue and purple plastic "fish netting" dominating the decor, along with assorted Greek knick-knacks, a pale-blue dancing dolphin lamp and a set of dolphin wind chimes, along with a large-screen television and a humming computer at a work desk in the front of the room. A back room is painted "Pepto-Bismol pink" with a Zorba-dancer mural hand-painted on one wall. Large windows are painted over with leafy floral designs that go back to a past occupant, Veggie Vault vegetarian restaurant, and maybe before that. On lunch visits we've seen similarly unpredictable (but always cordial) service, with memorable dishes including a spectacular special of the day - a large, tender and juicy deboned chicken breast, cooked until it was falling into shreds, infused with subtle herbal flavors and dusted with aromatic dried herbs, perched on a bed of big chunks of golden brown, sweet caramelized sauteed onions and a healthy portion of tender roasted potatoes. It was absolutely delicious, but it, too, came at warm room temperature, not hot. A lamb gyros was fine, too, a good portion of long-cooked, tender chunks, dusted with herbs and assembled on one of the Café's excellent pitas with lettuce and tomato and creamy tzatziki sauce. We'll be back, bringing an appetite and an open mind. $$ (August 2004) ACCESSIBILITY: There are no steps at the entrance or inside the dining room, but but bumpy, rough asphalt outside the entrance could be a problem for wheelchair users, as could closely spaced tables and chairs in the small restaurant's tight quarters.
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