Greek dining

Greek food!
Friday night, my mom and I decided to test out a new Greek/Italian restaurant in DSM (on University, a little bit east of the West Lakes Hy-Vee in a little strip mall). It's called Dolce Vita; you'd think they'd have much more Italian than Greek food with a name like that, but it's mostly Greek there.

It's small and café-like, and has Greco-café-ian decor — stuff you could easily do if you went to the trims department in a home improvement store. But I digress. We only had to wait about 20 minutes for a table, and the little Greek woman who was playing hostess was absolutely the sweetest woman ever. Thula might have been her name.

We started with some lovely dolmades — stuffed grape leaves with a delectable sauce — and I was so excited I could barely stand it. I missed their tangy taste. We followed with some tasty Greek salad and fresh bread (I think there was a hint of lemon flavor in the bread). And then the main course came: the spartan's platter. My mom and I split it, and it was a darn good idea. There was so much food. The spartan's platter is a trio of moussaka, pastitio and — my personal favorite — spanakopita, matched with some rice pilaf. After the entree, we went for dessert. Of course. We ended up getting two — the ever-popular baklava and pastry with cold custard, galaktoboureko — because our waiter misunderstood that I was asking which he suggested of two. So we shared them. I have to say that I loved the galaktoboureko a little bit more because it was just a bit unexpected.

We had an absolutely wonderful time — it reminded me of being back in Greece and having hours-long dinners just talking and eating and talking. Oh, and the check? Just over $20 for the two of us. Completely affordable and tasty to boot.

You can check out a rather lengthy (and very descriptive) review here, if you want even more detial. As for me, I know exactly what I'm ordering next time: sagnaki (flaming asiago cheese), the gyro platter, which comes with dolmades and spanakopita, and some other dessert.

HoJo, if you ever come back from Georgia, you should visit and we will go. I didn't see and Metaxa products on the menu, though ...

Last night.
KT made some awesome chili last night. It totally rocked my face off. We watched Elizabethtown, too, which I completely enjoyed. (Orlando Bloom, how you entertain me.)

And B and KT found some paint in their house. At first we thought it was going to be a nice "coffeehouse" red (B is somehow obsessed with having the house look like a coffee shop); turns out the color is more of a deep salmon. No matter — I used it to paint one of the walls in my soon-to-be bedroom. And turned the closet door "retro green", which is really a celery color just now.


My, I've been wordy lately.