Medium price, excellent everything.. So Saturday is date night for Mr. Man (my meat-eating husband) and I, and tonight we were running late. A lot of places in Burnaby close around 930 or 10 on Saturday night (we're night owls, so this is early for us), and we didn't get to deciding about dinner until close to 9. Rather than my normal gut-instinct-combined-with-heavy-research tendencies, I googled urbanspoon on my phone and looked for something with good reviews. We ended up at Cristos a little after 9 pm. The kitchen closes at 10. The place was packed, with 3 large groups and a bevy of smaller tables - a serving nightmare, and a sign that often means waiting for ages for a table. We were seated within 30 seconds, and a waitress was there within another minute.
Here's the thing - as my friends (and previous review) know, I'm big on service. I've been on both sides of the food service industry, and my personal preference is for staff who are professional, yes, but friendly - I'm big on friendly. The staff at Cristos was just that. I'm not sure how they fit so many waitresses in that place (the ratio of waitstaff to customers was great!), but the five (yes, 5) who spoke to us (greeted at the door, taken to our table, our waitress, the girl who helped bring the food, and the one we bumped into on our way out) were beyond lovely. Remember, we walked in at about 915 pm for a 10 pm close. At 1005, when I asked for the bill, mentioning that we knew they were closing, our server very sincerely told us not to rush, as they had 'so much to do to clean up and get ready for the next day' (even though I personally couldn't see a lot left to do! - score one for friendliness!).
Next, drinks. I tried one of the cheaper white wines, and when I asked for it, our server went to get me a tester first (did I mention we liked the staff?) - seems that this wine has a pine needle taste to it that folks either love or hate, and she wanted to make sure I loved it before ordering. When I mentioned how odd the taste was, she told us the story of the wine. Did I mention we liked the staff? The wine was interesting, too. I think it's growing on me.
Since we were trying to taste-test the place, we ordered the Cristos platter, which had roast lamb, chicken souvlaki, calamari, greek salad, rice, potatoes, pita, tzatziki, and dolmathes.
Lamb makes me sad, so that was all Mr. Man's - he says it was very tender, cooked perfectly, and seasoned well. The chicken souvlaki was flippin' amazing! If I say it was moist and tender and brilliantly seasoned, it's still not doing it justice. Best souvlaki I"ve had in ten years in the GVRD? Yup. Calamari also scares me (I can't get over the concept of squid, and there were little tentacle things in it), but Mr. Man loves the stuff, good, bad, or ugly. This definitely ranked in the 'good' section. His verdict? - very fresh, good texture without being chewy, and not overcooked. And a lot of it. The potatoes were standard lemon-Greek potatoes, but man o man, did I love them. My only complaint is that there were only 2 half-potatoes, and I would happily have had more. The rice was good, standard (white rice tends to bore me), with a nice lemon flavour. The tzatziki was good, definitely made in house (I really hate it when Greek restaurants buy tzatziki.....it seems wrong on so many levels). It was a little light on garlic for my taste, but so lovely and thick that I didn't really mind. The salad might just have been my favourite part of the meal. The feta was grated, and abundant, and lovely and salty and lush and rich and perfect, and even though green peppers aren't my favourite, the blend of chunks of veggies to feta to dressing was so good that I was sad to see it end. The pita was definitely made in-house, and had a good crisp-to-chewy ratio. I always find dolmathes a little disappointing (I don't know what I expect, but I think I want more flavour), but Mr. Man loved the beef-to-rice ratio.
The price is a little higher than the $10-$15 per entree designation it has on urbanspoon - most entrees were between $16.50 - $24, and the platter we had was around $45. Add in one drink each, and a decent tip, and an extra order of tzatziki, and we were above $75, but even with Mr. Man's appetite (which is a Force To Be Reckoned With) we had enough to bring home.
This won't be an every-week kind of place for us, but we'll definitely be more than happy to go back. Thumbs up, absolutely.
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