Zoe’s Restaurant and Take-away, Hyde Park

We don’t have to go to Greece to experience  authentic Greek food, do we? Thanks to the multiculturalism of our country, we got a diversity of food options here in Adelaide. In fact, Greek cuisine is one of the most wide-spread one all over the world. They uses a lot of herbs and spices as well as a variety of olive oils. It is regarded as one of the healthiest and long living cuisine on the planet Earth. We got plenty of Greek restaurants in town. Most people love their mezze plate and I do as well. But today, I am going to show you how I had my quick Greek fix after late work. Zoe’s is located in Hyde Park and is only a 10-minute-drive from city center. Over the years, I’ve heard good and bad things about this place and finally we decided to give it a go.

The inside decor is pretty old fashioned with the kitchen on the side. Some people may not like this concept but I think it’s great as at least you can see how your meal is prepared and can smell the beautiful aromas. The only disadvantage of this is that it may make the windows oily.

The service was friendly. We were warmly welcomed and got seated fairly quickly. As I told you, this was an after work dinner, I was very hungry and having no time to really think about the menu. Then we decided to have two platters which we could try everything all at once.

 

 

Mixed Grill (Lamb Shaslik, chicken shaslik, chevapchichi, Lamb Cutlet and chicken yiros meat) $29.90. The platter was served with pilaff rice,
green salad and lemon sauce. The lamb shaslik and chicken shaslik were pretty nice with chargrilled tender and moist meat. The lamb cutlet, although was well done, was very juicy and taste absolutely beautiful. The chevapchichi was yum but I can actually taste some bits and pieces of hard stuffs in it. Are they bones or just other spices? I don’t know, but I think the restaurant should pay more attention to these little things. The worst was the chicken yiros meat! They were absolutely dry and even cold. They must have been shredded before hand and put on the plate straight away. 😦 The salad was typical Greek salad, but what is the lemon for? Salad? Then you’ve added too much acidity to the dish. For the sauce? It already has the lemon sour taste in there. For meat? OMG

 

Zoe’s Seafood Platter (Char grilled salmon fillet, prawn shaslik, oysters, salt and pepper squid served on pilaff rice, green salad and lemon sauce)  $32.90. Did you guys notice the salad and sauce? Yep, they were exactly the same as the other platter. In this dish, the lemon made sense now cos you can add it to the salt and pepper squid :D. Again, the chef needs to pick up all these little things on their plate. Back to the food seafood side, fresh and quality fish and other seafood was used. The char smoked oyster taste beautifully with the smokiness flavour, where the prawn shaslik was tender and tasty. The salt and pepper squid was standard with minor differences. The salmon was chargrilled and looked fantastic. However, as it was fullllllllllllllllllly cooked through, the meat was overly dry. I suggest the chef to add some oil next time before grilling or just simply make a medium well to maintain the juices and flavour. By saying this, I am not asking the chef to do it my way. They can still use the Greek way to cook the salmon but please make sure it’s not that dry!!

Okay, Zoe’s runs as a family styled restaurant with rustic settings and take-away available at the kitchen. It was very busy on the night we went there and the serving size was huge. The service was faultless. However, the food was average with something good and something went really wrong.

Food: 2.5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Value: N/A – 3.5/5
Ambience: 2.5/5

Total: 12/20

 

Zoe’s Restaurant & Take-away 

164 King William Rd
Hyde Park, SA 5061

P 08 8271 6667