Mentzelos' Slow Food @ Glyfada

Visite Mentzelos' Slow Food on a Tuesday evening. Restaurants are not expected to be busy on Tuesdays and this place wasn't an exception.

I have read good reviews about this place on web, and having find a discount coupon (20 Euro discount from 40 Euro of food purchase), I gave it a go.

This is the interior. There are some tables outside, but on that day it was too chilly to be seated al fresco.

And one wall was covered with these distinctive book shelves.

I liked how it was decorated. It reminded me of pictures of Morocco.

The problem which could not be pictured was overwhelming smell of grilling meat. It smelt like a burger joint. They need a better ventilation system.

A plate of grilled bread and a bottled of mineral water were obligatory orders. They just brought these without asking us if we wanted or not.

Bread was fine. Problem, however, is that GH does not eat brown bread. Posh restaurants should stop serving things that patrons might not like.

The menu is pretty long, and most of them are starters (mezedes). There are also pasta, salads, and grill, mainly meat (if I remember, they had king prawns and salmon). I was disappointed to find out they almost stopped serving mageirefta (slow cooked food, like stews, casseroles, etc). If I remember well, there was only one (veal with orzo pasta) as a dish of the day.

As starters, we picked up smoky melitzanosalata, which was lovely. 4.50 Euro.

Un-smashed esame seeds gave it a nice texture. Although I did not like it to combine with the grilled, olive-oiled, and salted bread provided by the restaurant, it was a quite good melitzanosalata.

On the menu they have a section dedicated to smoked food and I chose smoked feta from there. 5.50 Euro.

I liked this, too. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that smoking process changed the texture of feta.

However, GH did not like it. He thought the smell of smoke was too much. It is a matter of taste, though.

From here, things started to go not-so-well.

There are 4 or 5 salads. I wanted horta and zucchini, but was told that horta was out of season. Really? It is October and there is not horta in season?

Here is green salad.

It was OK (except for spongy radish), but it definitely wasn't worth 8 Euro.

GH ordered grilled chicken (kontosovli) marinated in Oriental spices.

I expected the "Orient" to be Middle East, but it actually was India. It was somehow like tandoori chicken. Unfortunately it wasn't enough cooked and, regardless of the spices they used, there was rather unpleasant smell of chicken carcass. 11 Euro.

I had a Angus beef burger. 12 Euro.

I ordered it to be cooked medium, but was well-done and burnt on the surface.

Here a suspicion came. Although they are heavy on grill, may be they not have good grilling-skill. If so, it is very unfortunate.

The bill came to about 50 Euro in total, for which I actually paid 30 because of the discount voucher. If I ever go back again, I would order only mezedes and drink.

Mentzelos' Slow Food
Pandoras 16,
Glyfada 16674

Πανδώρας 16,
Γλυφάδα 16674

Tel. +30 210 894 1071
Mobile: +30 693 239 3832

http://mentzelos-slowfood.gr/

(At the time of writing, the menu on the web is not updated. There are much less choices and the prices are higher now.)