Akropolis Review

August 11, 2015 by Rich - Foodie Reviewer

Akropolis Review

I was recently over in the Holland. Strange way to begin a review of a Greek restaurant I know but stick with me, I will explain! A couple of weeks ago Lou and I jumped on an Easy Jet flight to Amsterdam from our very own Southend airport, and what a great Airport it is too. If you’ve never flown from there, give it a go, its great. From leaving my front door, to clearing security and having a pre-flight beer and a bag of peanuts in the bar took 30 minutes! Beat that Stansted! The flight? 45 minutes in total from Southend to Amsterdam. It takes longer to get a train to Fenchurch Street, and the flight is probably cheaper! Anyway, whilst in Holland we visited a Greek restaurant. We were with Lou’s sister and her husband, who is Dutch, so he knows what’s good, and speaks the lingo too, bonus! Apparently, the Dutch love a bit of Greek food, there seems to be a Greek around every corner. Almost like us Brits and our obsession with curry. As you would expect the food there was superb. Wonderful Souvlaki, gyros and classic Greek salads.

Well, our Dutch, ‘Greek’ experience had given me a taste for all things Greek. So, last week I tried to find a local Greek restaurant to replicate what I had eaten a couple of weeks earlier. I soon realised there aren’t that many restaurants to choose from! Would I have to jump back on a flight to Amsterdam to satisfy my Greek urge? Luckily I remembered there was one in Westcliff, at the bottom of Hamlet Court Road, of course, The Akropolis. So off we trundled last Thursday for dinner. When we arrived it was busy, always a good sign. Sitting in the corner a chap strumming away on a guitar made for a very pleasant atmosphere. We sat at our table for two and pondered the menu.

There’s a fair amount to choose from too. Classic starters such as Spanakopita, which is basically feta cheese and spinach wrapped in filo pastry. Or how about Keftedes, Greek meatballs. Just reading through the starters I was getting excited, this place is really authentic and traditional; I was back in Holland! The mains sounded equally authentic; how does Moussaka or Souvlaki with a Greek salad take your fancy? However, something just sounded standout and I had to have it, The Kleftico Feast, oh yes, how nice does that sound! To start, a selection of classic Greek dips and toasted pittas, then Kleftico, which is Greek slow roasted lamb shoulder, served with rice, roasted potatoes and a Greek salad, I was sold on this. Lou goes mad for any slow roasted meat, particularly Lamb so she needed little persuasion. Whilst waiting for the food we both supped on a Mythos Greek beer, which tasted well, like beer, so no complaints there.

The waiter promptly delivered our starter. A plate of Houmus, Tzatziki, and taramamsalta, together with a basket of piping hot pitta bread. Seconds later he arrived with another plate of the same and more piping hot pittas, had he duplicated the order? Surely the kitchen had made a mistake? No! We had a plate of dips and a basket of pitta each, how generous is that! The dips were great, but the standout was the Taramaslata. A creamy dip made from smoked cods roe, it really hit the spot with the warm toasted pitta. I initially thought the starter was a little on the large side, but clearly it wasn’t as I polished off the lot! The generous portions continued through to the main course. A huge hunk of glorious slow cooked lamb for both of us. It just fell apart; you could have eaten this with a spoon. We had some pitta bread and Tzatziki left over from our starters, which was lovely with the lamb, think posh doner kebab! It actually reminded me of a late night kebab I ate a few years ago in Melbourne. We found a great takeaway serving simple barbequed lamb, pitta, chilli sauce and yoghurt, far better than the mystery meat kebabs we devour after 10 pints on a Friday night here in the UK! Saying that though, I must confess, I do quite enjoy a dirty kebab in all its greasy goodness, there you go I’ve said it now; it’s a kinda guilty pleasure! Anyway, back to our main course, the rice was a nice accompaniment. But, I didn’t think the roast potatoes were needed, it was a little too much. But hey, nobody ever complains about having too much food do they? I’m not a Greek wine expert, so we took a recommendation from the waiter. A bottle of Makedonikos Tsantali, a red vino which was pretty good with the lamb.

I was full up after all that grub, but, as part of the ‘meal deal’ we had ordered, a pudding would soon be at the table, weather I liked it our not! I would just have to pull myself together, man up, and get on with it! Well, it arrived, and thankfully it wasn’t huge, just a perfect sweet treat. Two lovely Kataifi, which are traditional pastries with walnuts and honey syrup, very nice and a perfect finish.

But, come one, I wasn’t ready to go home just yet! I was having a good time, so lets give the Metaxa a go; Greek brandy! Yep, you thought only the French produced Brandy, but I had heard a lot about the Greek stuff. So, two large Metaxas’s please. But which one? Metaxa is graded, the more stars the better apparently. We went for 7 star, and it wasn’t too bad at all, so much so, we enjoyed a couple, it was pretty smooth. I probably could have downed another, but we really had to make tracks, it was a School night after all. The bill arrived, £75 with a tip, for three courses, beer, wine and Metaxa, now I think that’s good value.

We are not spoilt for choice with Greek Restaurants in the local area, bit this is not a problem. With Restaurants such as Akropolis you don’t really need to look any further, we really enjoyed it. Food, service it all came together nicely. Live music too!