It was nights like last night that make me hate New York. Aarti and I decided to get dinner on a beautiful Friday night around 9pm. In any other city, that's pretty late enough that it shouldn't be an issue to find a place to eat. Except for the fact that I live in NYC, it's literally the city that never sleeps. Every place that we tried to go had either a line what spilled out on to the street (Rosemary's), over an hour wait (Yerrba Buena), or an hour and 30 minutes (Commerce). Of course then the places that did look like they had seating made us wonder why no one was there. In the end, we said that we would try one more place before just calling it a night and getting something sad like Chipotle or Subway. We ended up at Snack Taverna and we literally got the last table in the place.
Now I'm not giving them 4 forks simply because it was the one place that had seating but because the food is legitimately delicious there. Greek food is one of those types of food that I rarely think of but when I do have it, I remember how much I love it (see my review for Pylos). By the time we got our menu it was almost 10pm, so Aarti and I went to town and ordered everything our stomachs could handle. Seriously, I kept rattling off dishes and the waitress looked at us like there should be more people. We got the tzatziki ($8), saganaki ($11), lamb stifado ($14), spinach triangles ($12), zucchini fritters ($10), and a small greek salad ($12). The saganaki (pan seared kefalotyri cheese with lemon and tomato) came out first and while I would have liked it set on fire in front of me (like how they do it in Greece), you just can't go wrong with a square of fried cheese. Next came the greek salad and tzatziki (yogurt, cucumber and garlic). Oh my, the tzatziki was amazing. I wish that it came in a bigger size than the small dish we got. I wanted to put it on everything else we ate and the pita that came with it was super soft and the perfect combination for it. The greek salad was also fabulous. It had bright red juicy chunks of tomato, a huge block of aged feta cheese, red onions and cucumber with a perfect olive oil/herb dressing. I always think I can make a greek salad at home but it just never tastes as good as it does in restaurants. I also thought the zucchini fritters were great too. They were these 3 fried fritters that came stuffed with feta, kefalotyri cheese, garlic and tomato sauce. It was pretty rich with all the different cheeses but at least there were only 3 of them. By the time I got to the lamb stifado, I was pretty stuffed but I always have room for a good meat dish. Unfortunately, I wasn't super impressed with this dish. It was braised lamb in a tomato and pearl onion sauce. It was a bit too salty and the lamb could have been cut smaller and more tender. It was actually my least favorite dish of the night. Funny that the one meat dish was my least favorite. The spinach triangles was you typical spanakopita with spinach wrapped in phyllo dough. It was totally fine but by the time I got it, I was ready to keel over with fullness.
I am totally thankful that we were able to avoid a Friday night dinner at Chipotle and Snack totally came through in a big way. I would definitely come here again on a random dinner outing again and it has reinvigorated my interest in Greek food. Total bill: $120 with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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