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eggplant mixed with olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice and enjoyed on toasted pita. Alternatively, you may choose to have “bougiordi,” a baked dish con sisting of sausage, tomato, feta cheese and oregano that is spread on toasted ciabatta-style bread. Both menus offer hummus (pureed chickpeas mixed with olive oil, lemon, and garlic that is spread on toasted pita), a dish com mon to much Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern cuisine and increas ingly popular in the United States. The menus also offer “kalamarakia,” lightly fried squid served with lemon and “tzatziki,” a delicious spread mixing cucumber, yogurt, garlic, and dill that you can also order by itself and eat on toasted pita. (Of course, fried squid is commonplace in the Mediterranean diet and familiar to most Americans as an Italian dish-”calamari”-that is served with tomato sauce instead of tzatziki and appears frequently as an appe tizer item in local restaurants.) Finally, both lunch and dinner menus include “garites saganaki,” shrimp sauteed in butter and mixed with lemon and feta cheese, then served on toasted ciabatta- like bread. You may find it difficult to choose among these items. Our sug gestion is to order several and be nice enough to share each with your table companion(s). The full lunch menu at Taverna Mythos includes sandwiches, pizzas, and salads, some of which are regulars on other restaurant menus on the Crys tal Coast. These include the hamburger, shrimp burger, turkey and bacon, and prime rib sandwiches. So the “plain American food, please” types among us will find sufficient choice in the sandwich menu. Beyond this, however, the menu proffers at least three won derful sandwiches with clearly Greek roots: “gyro” sandwiches, a national specialty in Greece that is sometimes ( but increasingly) found in restaurants in the United States. The “gyro” on the menu that is most familiar to Ameri cans is made up of shaved lamb and beef topped with “tzatziki” sauce and lettuce, tomato, and onion, then placed in an envelope of toasted pita bread. (It is truly delicious.) Two additional variations on the “gyro” are also on the menu. These innovations include a marinated chicken version and a “souvlaki” version that uses marinated pork. In fact, these “gyro” sandwiches are also available for dinner, along with a version that uses shrimp. Choices, wonderful choices! Also available for the choosing from both the lunch and dinner menu are specialty pizzas (apparently where Greece meets Italy.). Two are particu larly worth mention here. One is the “Greek Pizza,” whose toppings include fresh spinach, onion, tomato, and feta and mozzarella cheese. The second, more unusual and inventive, is the “Mythos Special,” topped with spicy lamb, tomato, onion, and, of course, feta cheese. (Please note that the “Mythos Special” is only available for dinner.) By now, some among you are say ing, “what about salad options?” at Taverna Mythos. Have no fear, the res taurant offers a full Greek salad com posed of romaine lettuce (said to have originated on the Greek Aegean island of Cos), carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, Greek olives, and feta cheese. This delicious possibility is available at both lunch and dinner. Also available, only at dinner, is the “horiatiki salata” or “Greek village salad,” which brings to gether tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, kalamata olives, and scallions, finishing this healthy combination with feta cheese and a homemade Greek salad dressing. These ethnic salads, plus a regular garden salad and a Caesar salad, can be enhanced by adding scallops, shrimp, or chicken, making them into full meals (at least full for the “food-virtuous” among us.) The complete dinner menu at Taverna Mythos continues to bring the great flavors of Greece to those of us living on the Crystal Coast. Appetizers found only on the dinner menu include “spanakopita,” a spinach, feta cheese, dill, and onion mixture wrapped in flaky phyllo pastry (absolutely deli cious!); “tiropita,” a three cheese com bination likewise wrapped in phyllo pastry; and saganaki, a fried Greek cheese (again truly delicious!). Also among the choices on the dinner menu are nicely inventive “pastas” (not all, in fact, contain pasta) and grilled meats. The “pastas” on the menu are especially mouth-watering. For instance, you will find a “Greek spaghetti”-pasta topped with ham, tomatoes, garlic, and moz zarella and feta cheeses, then baked in the oven. Or you may prefer the “ma- karonada tou psara,” that is, linguine pasta laced with scallops, shrimp, and mussels in a basil-tomato sauce. Then again, you might consider the “Greek lasagna”-described as “layered thick macaroni with meat sauce and topped with creamy bechamel (sauce) and cheese” (clearly a close relative of the Italian version.). And, of course, you can (should?) elect to eat a variation on the traditionally delicious Greek dish “mousakas,” effectively a casserole bringing together layers of potato and roasted eggplant that is covered with bechamel sauce and cheese. (This origi nally Greek dish has many variations and has become a staple dish through out the Near East.) From the grill, Taverna Mythos of fers nicely prepared beef, chicken, pork, and lamb. Those among us who insist that they “always eat beef” when they dine out will be pleased by the “mosha- risia brizola,” a center-cut ribeye steak seasoned lightly and then charbroiled. (This steak is not recognizably Greek, but it will please the palate that is not ready for seriously ethnic cuisine.) For the more adventuresome, menu options include the “Greek grill”-the famihar center-cut ribeye steak that is char- broiled and then covered with spinach, feta cheese, and shrimp (sort of a Greek “surf and turf”). Equally adventure some (and delectable) is the choice of seasoned and charbroUed pork chops topped with sauteed spinach, mush rooms, and feta cheese. Also nicely available is “paedakia arnesia,” lamb chops (what Greek restaurant worth its ethnicity would be without lamb) that are seasoned and charbroiled; and “kota tis sharas,” which is “chops of chicken” seasoned and charbroiled. All items from the grill, even if prepared with an ethnic touch, will satisfy almost any American palate. Wine is available to accompany your dinner. The wine list, though not extensive, offers about a half-dozen op tions among both white and red wines. Two of the possibilities, a white and a red, are table wines from Greece. Dessert options at Taverna Mythos are two: cheesecake with fruit topping and “baklava” dipped in chocolate. “Baklava” consists of layered, butter- infused phyllo pastry, chopped nuts, honey, and spices. It is, for very good reason, a popular sweet in both Greece and Turkey. The Mythos version, dipped as it is in chocolate, is fantastic. Be sure to try it when you dine there. Taverna Mythos occupies the space at 711 Evans Street that previ ously housed the Williams Restaurant. Mythos is presently open for lunch only on Saturday and Sunday, starting at 11 a.m. Dinner is served from Wednesday through Sunday beginning at 5 p.m. Reservations may be made by calling 240-1755. Menu information is avail able at www.moreheadcityrestaurants. com. The restaurant does not yet have its own separate website. reat NOW OPEN FOR LUNCH Every Saturday & Sunday llam-2;30pm pw Wednesday Night SHRIMP NIGHT $9.99 Atlantic Beach Causeway 247-2344 thechannelmarker.com
The Shore Line (Pine Knoll Shores, N.C.)
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June 1, 2011, edition 1
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