We went to Mikonos expecting big things based on the slew of 4 and 5 star ratings, but ultimately left disappointed and hungry.
We arrived at noon on Saturday and there was nobody else in the entire place. My wife took that (along with dated decor and the sparsely stocked and sad looking dessert case at the entrance) as an omen. Nevertheless we decided to proceed.
First things first. In 8 years of Yelping, this is literally the first place I've been to where they didn't have a normal, functional high chair for kids. Typically, restaurants have the generic wood or plastic ones with a snap belt on it, something that most parents have seen at a million places. At Mikonos, they had some circa 1990, second hand looking, Fisher Price high chair with a defective safety belt on it. And, to top it off, it was dirty and stained; the tray, the seat, the belt, everything. Filthy. Major turnoff. We decided to not use it and to be honest, they should really be embarrassed to offer something like that to a customer.
Anyway, we finally got situated and ordered up the lentil and vegetable soup, the chicken gyro and the lamb souvlaki. Both entrees came with lemon potatoes, tzatziki and a side salad.
The soup was nice. Good flavor. Lots of lentils and vegetables. My wife suspected it came from a can, but I disagreed and felt that the vegetables were too fresh to be canned. Maybe the lentils were canned, I'm not 100% sure. Overall though, the soup was a nice and hearty appetizer (for me anyway).
We waited around a bit for the main course and when it finally arrived we thought the plates looked nice. Unfortunately, the quality of the lamb was very poor. It was so tough and filled with fat and sinew that it was nearly impossible to cut up, even with a pretty sharp steak knife. Needless to say, it was impossible to eat (or even chew) the meat on either of the 2 skewers. So disappointing.
When asked by the waitress if everything was okay, we showed her the low quality lamb. She conferred with the chef who then offered us 1 complimentary skewer, which we refused. We felt that this wasn't a very good solution considering that 2 skewers (not 1) sucked, and also, we weren't sure whether the replacement souvlaki would be any better.
As for the chicken gyro, it was definitely better than the lamb and came well seasoned, but it really wasn't a gyro. It seemed to be lightly sauteed. I'm pretty sure this would be a major faux pas at any serious Greek place. Maybe in Ewing it passes muster because nobody knows or cares what a proper gyro is. Who knows? I also felt like the chicken wasn't freshly cooked, but rather reheated. The color and texture made me think it had been sitting in the fridge and was just given a quick spin around the hot pan. The end result wasn't awful, but it wasn't really impressive either.
As for the sides, the potatoes were really good and had a lovely, bold lemon flavor while the tzatziki was superbly rich with a strong dill flavor. We liked them a lot. The side salad was a throwaway, mostly chopped romaine with half a cherry tomato and some onion strands. Nothing that we haven't seen at a million Mediterranean places.
Mikonos is a very hard restaurant to rate. On the one hand, the soup was decent, 2 of the 3 sides were good, and the service was pleasant. So there were some good aspects that, on their own, would warrant a few stars. However, serving 2 seriously substandard meat dishes and providing a broken/dirty high chair are big mistakes that a veteran restaurant should not be making. Overall, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Mikonos rates one star for me. Really disappointing experience. read more