Weekend Carnivore

I love Greek food but I am in the solid minority amongst my friends. So, even though I have been eyeing up The Real Greek restaurant on the Bankside area of the Thames for years now, I had never actually managed to talk anybody else into going there with me.

That all changed this weekend when we had some friends from Wales staying with us for the weekend. The female of the pair, Mandy, is as much of a hummus nut as me. We knew we would be near the Bankside around meal time and when I floated the idea of trying out the The Real Greek restaurant they didn’t take much selling.

Even before we tried the food at the Greek restaurant, I loved the atmosphere. It is located on the Bankside area of the Thames and is found right next to The Globe theatre. The day we ate there, just happened to be one of the days of the recent Thames Festival, so there was even more added atmosphere to the area.

As we walked up to The Real Greek restaurant, it was very inviting with tables set out on the walkway outside of the restaurant. There were chefs grilling some meat skewers outside which also added to the atmosphere even if it did make me slightly nervous about how vegetarian friendly the restaurant may have been.

Luckily, my fears died down as soon as I got a look at the menu. The main style of food served at The Reel Greek is meze and souvlaki. Whilst most of the souvlaki menu was meat based, nearly all of the meze menu passed as vegetarian. They got plus points for not only clearly marking which dishes were vegetarian but also which were vegan. On top of that, they also listed the calorie count for each dish right behind it on the menu. Now, that is something I would love to see as a trend in other restaurants. Had, I been making myself stick strictly to my daily calorie count it would have taken all of the guess work out of it. Really, that alone tempts me back since it would take so much stress out of dieting. Mind you, it did mean I didn’t even want to look at the dessert menu.

We chose to take a table in the outdoor portion of the restaurant. With the weather being so nice and with so much hustle and bustle going on around Bankside it felt for sure the way to go. Clearly others had the same idea because the restaurant was busy with other people relaxing as they munched there way through some Greek meze. As we looked over the menu, I was amused and charmed by watching the others get served their meze on the very English sort of cake stands normally seen at high tea. It was such a lovely British twist to the Greek restaurant.

The Real Greek restaurant

They had a number of meal deal options on the menu which allowed the whole table to order a large number of meze dishes and share them amongst the group. Which was perfect since there were so many vegetarian dishes to try out.  In the end, most all of the vegetrian meze we ordered was very good.  A few items did particularly stand out such as the Greek flatbreads which we all agreed were truly outstanding.

Another of the favourite vegetarian dishes we had that afternoon was the Gigandes Plaki. This was made up of giant white beans – they looked like butterbeans – served in a rich tomato sauce. It was marked on the menu as being fine for both vegetarian and vegan diets.

Gigandes Plaki

Of course, as I mentioned, I am a hummus freak. So, there was no way we were going to a Greek restaurant and not sample their house hummus. The hummus at The Real Greek was so nice that in the end we actually ordered a second plate so that there was enough for us all to have healthy servings. It was the right thickness and tasted especially good smeared on those tasty flatbreads.

The Real Greek hummus

I would for sure go back to The Real Greek and not least because there was so many vegetarian dishes on the menu that there are still a large number left to try.  You have to love it when you go to a resturant where there is enough meat on the menu to please the full on carnivores in your life but there are enough vegetrain dishes on the menu to leave you with just as much choice.