Milo's Greek Restaurant has been in its Pickering location forever. It was here when I moved to…read morePickering, 25 years ago, and it has been ages since I've been back. Me and some family members were in the area, and decided to give it a try. We were greeted and seated promptly and then, for the longest time ... nothing. As it turned out, we'd spend a lot longer at this restaurant than we had anticipated. After about 20 minutes, a kind and apparently exhausted waitress appeared, so we ordered drinks and saganaki to start. 10 minutes later, our drinks appeared, and we ordered our main courses then. Although the menu gave prices for wine by the glass, half litre or bottle, we were told that they don't have enough wine to offer any more than a glass at a time. Strange, and unexpected.
Eventually, the saganaki (Greek flaming cheese) arrived, and it was really, really good - a generous triangle of grilled, flaming cheese, easily split between the three of us. It was served with some odd bread, which resembled buttered and toasted hot dog or burger buns. This helped take the edge off our hunger as we waited for our main course. And waited. Looking at the time, I noticed that we had already spent over 60 minutes in the restaurant, which was extremely chilly on a cold winter's evening. Many customers, including us, wore their coats throughout the evening. Apparently, the restaurant dining area is heated only by two electric fire places.
Our waitress came out and let us know that we had to wait because my daughter's order of octopus was taking a while. At this point, we had already committed to being here, so we had no choice but to see it through. Finally, the food came out. My daughter's octopus was, sadly, overcooked and tough, but still tasty, and the lemon roasted potatoes were excellent. My husband's roasted lamb did not seem like it was prepared as a roast, as there was no browning or roast] flavor, but seemed to have been prepared in a pressure cooker or slow cooker. I had ordered the Moussaka, and had high expectations, based on my memory of Milo's creamy, eggplant-filled, nicely seasoned Moussaka of my distant, long-ago previous visit. However, my portion of Moussaka had the oddest texture: rather mushy and grainy. The well-seasoned, savory tasting ground beef of my memories had now been transformed into a rather average-tasting ground beef mixture that would have been equally at home in a sloppy joe. And I could not find an eggplant in the casserole at all ... well, maybe it had somehow been reduced to such mushiness that it lost it's eggplant quality, but I could swear that it was missing. It was all edible food, though, but not up to our expectations.
I hate to give any place a lowly, two-star review. I had hoped for much more, because there is so much about Milo's to raise one's hopes: it's not a big chain, but locally, family-run; it has an appealing and timeless Mediterranean decor; and the menu offers many interesting Greek choices. A few small changes would be an upgrade: better bread, some additional staff and a few space heaters would be a good start. Milo's is the type of restaurant that I would love to support, but I've read enough reviews with similar observations that I am unlikely to return.
