I'm Only Here for the Food!

Vancouver Greek Summer Fest 2009
4541 Boundary Road
Vancouver, BC

On last Friday’s post, I mentioned about the Greek Summer Festival, which opened on, well, Friday. While the ideal situation would have been going there for lunch, my workplace is nowhere near Boundary (not to mention I had already scheduled a lunch with friends), so the only option remaining was to go after my “usual” Friday night activities. And, here it goes, the Vancouver Greek Summer Festival!

The “bad” part was that it was a bit late already, around 10:00 p.m. But, there was still food, right?

By 10:00 p.m., it was already dwindling down for the day…

But tell me there is still food!!!!

So, I just queued to buy my “ticket” for my order.

And, what to order? Here is the menu! (For a larger version, check the Greek Summer Fest site).

Let’s face it, when you are hungry (like I was, after all, it was 10:00 p.m.!) and you are in a Greek restaurant, no matter how large is the menu, you will end up ordering lamb! Unfortunately, I was a bit hungrier than what I thought and did not have that much patience trying to adjust the settings of the camera. Hence the fuzzy picture… I apologize for that. -_-;;;

It was served with Greek salad, rice and bread. The later was, well, not much to talk about. The rice, oddly, was better than most Greek places but not at par of most Asian shops (I am biased on this thought, tough. After all, I am Chinese!). The salad was actually good. The cucumber still had a crunch and the “bitterness” of the feta was still there. Best of all, the salad was not too “wet” (as in there was not too much liquid due to the vegetables). And the most important question: How was the lamb? Actually, it could have been better. The reason is that, given the time of the day, the pieces I had must have been sitting there for a while, hence, slightly dry. Likewise, I felt cheated as the pieces were on the bony side (good for taste; but there was too much bone…). However, that was not necessarily a bad thing because that gave me the option of going for dessert!

Loukoumades, can anybody say the Greek’s version of timbits? ^_^;;;

I ended up ordering bougatsa, a custard wrapped phyllo. It is not that sweet but satisfying…

At this point, I would have called it a day. However, notice something odd from the initial set of pictures? How about the fourth picture, the one of the queue to buy the tickets to order food? If I went on Friday night, how come the picture seems to have been taken in the middle of the day? Well, it just happened that I went there again on Saturday noon! This time, I took my time to take pictures of the cooking area as well as the queues…

Plates ready for the lamb/souvlaki/spanakopita/etc plates.

Souvlaki wraps being made! ^_^

Where all the phyllo based dishes (cheese, spinach, custard, etc.) were kept

Hmmmmm….. Lamb! That’s a lot of lamb!

Unlike other festivals, it seems the Greeks are more than happy to pose for a picture!

And, the queues, hehehehe.

As for me, I did not order the lamb. What?! I did not order what!? What happened is that I dinner plans with fellow bloggers that night and did not want to have a too heavy lunch (HA!). So, this is what I ordered:

Chicken souvlaki with tzatziki. I found the chicken slightly dry for my liking; however, the tzatziki made up for it. Personal preference, anybody?

I also went a spanakopita, spinach wrapped in phyllo. I found this one to be quite good, specially when you dose it with a bit of the tzatziki side. The only problem with the phyllo dishes was that the upper layers if phyllo tend to breakdown too easily making a big mess!

Finally, while I did not have lamb myself, it is needless to say others did not. Like…

Would I come back? At this point, I am not sure. While I don’t mind watching people dance (yes, there is a stand for that!), if I go, it will be only for the food. However, there are so many other festivities in between, mainly Canada Day, it is the question of if I will have time! But, since it ends in July 5th, I might have enough, hehehehe.