I had heard a lot about Oleana from Lav and Eric enroute to New Hampshire, so I was pretty excited to give it a try. Even though it received tons of raves reviews, I wasn't going in with really high expectations since I had never heard of it before. But I was totally in love with our dinner there and it was worth the crazy drive up there. I was pretty surprised at how completely packed it was given that it was 9pm on a Thursday night. Even though we had a reservation, but still had to wait about 20 minutes, which in relation to a NYC wait was totally ok.
The menu here is Mediterranean, vegetarian friend and heavy on the flavor and spices. While I wasn't starving when I got there (I totally blame the gigantic Auntie Ann's pretzel I had at the rest stop), my eyes definitely got big from all the yummy sounding dishes they had. They have a LOT of tapas style entries as well as large sized entrees. For starters, we all split the whipped feta with sweet and hot peppers ($5), saganaki ($10), and the sultan's delight ($13) and for my entree I got the hanger steak with a feta and chickpea salad ($29). The one thing that disappointed me was the fact that they didn't have a Greek salad on the menu because I was totally in the mood for a good solid salad. But luckily the rest of the dishes were so delicious that it didn't make me miss that the salad wasn't on the menu. The whipped feta was amazing. It had the strong flavor of the feta but with a nice combination of the roasted peppers to give it a sweet flavor. It was whipped so smoothly that it almost had a butter-like consistency. The saganaki was also fabulous and served with ouzo, sesame and really delicious grilled figs. But my favorite appetizer was the sultan's delight which was tamarind glazed beef served with a smokey eggplant puree. The beef was melt in your mouth and almost like a short rib in texture and consistency. The puree was also spot on and had a very subtle smokey flavor that wasn't overwhelming but add a great touch to the dish. I was pretty full at this point but I had to leave room for the hanger steak. I am always a sucker for really good steak and this one absolutely did not disappoint. It was good perfectly medium rare, closer on the rare side with a beautiful juicy red center. The "salad" that came with it was more of a sauteed of peppers, onions, some feta and chickpeas. I could have done without it or just less of it because by the time I got to the bottom of it, there was a puddle of oil in the bowl that made it a bit unappetizing. I had a taste of Eric's trout spanakopita ($24) and it was a nice blend of fish, spinach, avocado and roe. It was bit heavy on the phyllo dough but otherwise it was a pretty unique dish that I haven't seen anywhere. I didn't try any of Lav's dishes but she raved about the spinach falafel ($12), the walnut muhammara ($11) but mentioned that the corn and kohlarbi ($8) was lacking in flavor and a bit bland and her least favorite dish of the night. We really decided to make it an overly decadent meal and got 2 desserts. I totally apologize but I can't really remember what we got but I just remembered that one of them was too heavy the basil flavor and didn't seem right for a dessert.
All in all, the food here had fabulous and strong flavors and it was most likely due to all the spices used in the dishes. Eric actually had the cookbook for the restaurant and we tried to make a few of the dishes the following night (fairly successfully but still not as good as the restaurant) and the key to all the dishes were all these unique spices. I know my friends were nervous about taking me here for dinner but they didn't have anything to worry about at all. I've always said that I think Greek/Mediterranean food is like a sleeper hit - very unassuming but always a winner - and Oleana is no exception. I would be more than happy to see a branch in the NYC area soon. Total bill: $75/pp with tax, tip and wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment