Herald rating: * * *
Address: 43 Ponsonby Rd
Open: 7 days
Cuisine: Greek
From the menu: Lentil and olive soup, pide bread $10; Snapper, herb wine sauce, spinach and crab fritters $31; Oven-baked rice pudding, maple syrup $11
Vegetarian: Easily
Wine: Reasonable
KEY POINTS:
Greek cuisine gets a bad rap. AA Gill reckons it's "unremittingly ghastly. Greek food is best eaten drunk, but even that they don't make easy". Which may be unfair: when you've spent a couple of milennia working out democracy, philosophy, drama, comedy, mathematics, engineering, botany, biology and medicine, how the planets work and that song about the poor lemon tree, it's a little cheeky for us to happen along and say, "Nice one, Pythagoras, but what's for tea?"
The newest place on Ponsonby Rd is Plato's Greek Taverna. "Taverna" images whitewashed walls, rickety wooden tables and chairs, balding and swarthy waiters in garish waistcoats, jangling bouzoukis and ouzo (funny, you never think of the food). This is Ponsonby, so elements of all are present, but rather more up-market than fish-market.
White walls are neatly rendered by the finest masons in the 'hood, tables are white-linened and chairs black-leathered, male waiters in sombre black and women in starched white. The strolling player strummed a guitar and sang his own sweet songs. Tom and I thought about ouzo but ordered wine. By the bottle not the jug.
Here, a big fat Greek wedding would be very staid: "Mrs Zorba, if your husband doesn't stop dancing he'll have to leave. We've just had the floors done. And he'll be getting a bill for those plates he's been throwing into the fireplace."
Jude, Tom, Sue and I started with the Olympus vege platter. The Poseidon had fishes, and the Artemis, meats.
Tasty-looking nibbles: different olives with feta, tzatziki and aubergine dips, dates stuffed with cheese, artichokes, slow oven-roasted tomatoes topped with herbs, vine leaves and rice. The tomatoes were a joyous reminder that there is a sun; others were "disappointing", "flavourless" and, from a harsh corner, "tinned". Spanokopita had too much, too heavy, pastry and not enough anything else.
We were ready for mains. We were, but the kitchen wasn't. "Chronology" may be derived from a Greek word but is not a Platonic concept.
Sue's Souvlaki Apni (lamb kebabs, grilled veges, herbed potato) could have come off your brother-in-law's barbecue _ he has a secret marinade that he can't tell you about because he'd have to kill you. Except he's forgotten to put the lamb in it until the last minute so you can't taste it.
Tom and I had Kota Meh Pilafi, chicken breast stuffed with figs and mushrooms, wrapped in vine leaf, and capsicum stuffed with rice. Tom must have got my figs. You may recall stuffed peppers from dinner parties some decades ago. The dish was like hearing Greek _ sounds wonderful but lacks the poetry and flavour of, say, Italian.
Hirino Gemisto is not the centre-forward for the Croatian football team.
This is a Hellenic classic: pork loin, stuffed with prunes and leek, then roasted. Here it is served with mashed potato flavoured with feta and a white peppercorn sauce. Jude scored it: if not sensational, the pork was the best executed and flavoured, boldest of the meals.
Sue chose the first bottle, 06 Pepperjack cab'sav that went rather well. It went so well that we needed another, so I chose a nero d'avola. "Sorry," the waitress came back, "all the bottles are opened because people are buying it by the glass." So I chose a merlot. "Sorry," the waitress came back, "all the ..."
What is Ponsonby Rd coming to?
By this time I'd have shared a glass with Socrates if he'd offered.
Our third choice was a tame 07 Allan Scott pinot noir.
Baklava, naturally. The honey, syrup, nuts and clove-soaked phyllo was almost worth the price of this mission. "That saved the meal," said Jude. Almost.
Plato's philosophy is tricky to digest. "Taverna" suggests homespun cuisine: the staff's enthusiasm; huge, meaty portions; the prices (under $12 entrees, $30 and less mains) agree. I know it's Ponsonby Rd but the place seemed rather over-dressed for the occasion.
