Anywhere that has an indoor pond with waterfall is generally amazing right? Right?! No..not in this…read morecase, I'm sorry to say; because I very much wanted Nikos to be incredible.
I liked a lot of things about Nikos, the atmosphere is fantastic if you are seeking that genuine family restaurant vibe- I imagine it would be great for family events to hire the place out, as it has a stage for live music, is reasonable priced, has a dance floor a full bar and is very clean. There is a noticeable lack in music though.
The service staff are very willing to answer any question you have and are attentive throughout your meals-dare I say boarder line annoyingly attentive but potentially they are understaffed. They bring you water for the table, without asking at the beginning of the meal-as it should be- I appreciate that more than I can articulate.
So they let you order Banquets for one! Isn't that amazing?! I've never seen that before! Banquets are always too much and you always have so much food that so much goes to waste, that this is the best thing I have seen a restaurant do! Plus, it doesn't single out the single folk who want the banquet but don't have another to order it with! Love it!
We ended up ordering one banquet ($35) that came with five courses. I have posted photos of all courses except the meat course and the desert course. We also ordered a side plate of olives.
The first course consisted of miscellaneous dips, which were all seemingly homemade, flat bread, pickled octopus, fasoulia, a dolmade and roasted capsicum. It was all as you would expect, nothing to write home about, the pickled octopus was great, not rubbery at all and perfectly spiced. Dare I say the dolmade was slightly decrepit, which indicated to me it might be tinned. I think I have made enough in my life to make the judgement. This plate was definitely big enough for two very hungry people.
The second course was chicken from their spit and Saganaki. The Saganaki was cooked well and the chicken although tasty, I couldn't help but notice I wasn't eating a gyro. Promptly brought out again was our third course which was the meat with a lovely fresh green salad with cheap Bulgarian feta. The meat, again incredibly delicious, was from the spit. I was expecting cuts of beef or kebabs or keftedes, something that wasn't shaved for a take away meal.
Between the meat course and the next course we waited, what seemed like a very long, unreasonable amount of time. Throughout the banquet they had gotten us accustomed to a certain pace and now that the restaurant had gotten busier our banquet had come to an abrupt holt, as did the meals of those around us.
When the seafood plate finally came out, it was rather sad looking. As I put the oyster in my mouth I instantly felt it was a tremendous error in judgment. It had a distinct flavour of "I may kill you in your sleep." Thus I lived to tell the tale. The small piece of fish was overcooked, unseasoned and tasted thawed, as did the scallop and prawn. Neither of us were game enough to taste the mussel, photo attached. The chips were great. The plate came with sticky, oozy, yummy garlic sauce which was ice cold which completely creeped us out; I mean it should have been warm!
At this point we never saw the waitress again, we got bored of waiting and decided we would get desert to take away. The desert was rolled baklava, Turkish delight and galatabouriko (I'm sure that's not spelled right) with three dried frigs and a random bunch of sultanas. Desert was nice, not in any way, shape or form close to being the best I've had, but nice.
For the banquet, 1 beer, a soda water, side of olives, two full tummies and a nice time- we spent just over $50. I think that's pretty awesome. Next time I would probably opt for their take away side and avoid the seafood. I also think, considering that they are a Greek restaurant and all of their food is enhanced with lemon, they were skimpy on the lemon but maybe that's just me.
