Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Stratos - One Serious Adventure!


We were introduced to Stratos by Haley’s boyfriend who works in the area and swears by this Greek hidden treasure. Haley went a few times and decided that we had to go for an official Foodie Adventure ASAP! Upon arrival, one might be thrown a little though. Rumor has it that this restaurant is a renovated strip club and I believe it. The look of the place was enough to make me get out my phone and snap a picture immediately after getting out of my car in the parking lot. With that in mind, when asked if we wanted a table or a booth there was no question in our minds – TABLE!!!



All of the staff was really nice and the place was pretty crowded for a Monday night. It may be because of the half-price food on Mondays and Tuesdays. Gotta love a great deal! We started off with hummus which comes with toasty, buttery pita bread, carrot sticks and celery sticks. The hummus was pretty good – more nutty than garlicky. It wasn’t our favorite hummus ever, but it was above average for sure. The pita bread was really great. It was just so buttery and toasty. Not the afterthought it can so often be at lesser restaurants.



For our entrees, Haley and I tried to cover our bases to make for an all-encompassing blog experience. She went with the lamb souvlaki and I went with the meat lover’s gyro plate. Haley’s boyfriend, Michael, ordered one of his favorites, the Pastitsio - greek lasagna. Haley’s lamb came with pita bread, rice, sautéed vegetables and she asked for Tzatziki instead of the lemon butter sauce. It was all really good. The lamb was flavorful and tender. The rice and veggies were good and the pita bread was awesome.



My meat lover’s gyro plate came with double gyro meat on a toasty open-faced pita, tomatoes, red onions, homemade Tzatziki, a cube of feta and kalamata olives. We all agree that this gyro meat is the best we’ve ever had. It was so much juicier than all the others, not to mention the awesome flavor. The Tzatziki was great – not too overpowering – and the feta and olives were the perfect accompaniment to this enormous plate.



Michael’s greek lasagna was really good, too. It had this awesome golden brown almost crust on top and the rest of it had just great flavor. The lasagna came with rice, garden vegetables, toasted pita bread and one dolma. He let me try some of the dolma because I haven’t liked any that I’ve had, and I seriously loved this one! I guess I’d only had sub-par dolmas until now.



After our meals, we decided that we need dessert since our bills would be just way too cheap with the half-priced cuisine (however we can rationalize it, right?). Our waitress recommended the Aphrodite’s Chocolate Passion which is described as “a sex bomb of a dessert”. It consisted of a brownie crust filled with chocolate mousse cake, chunks of cheesecake and caramel, topped with chocolate and almonds, and served with sides of whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. Holy dessert, Batman! We got it. We ate it. We loved it. It was indeed a sex bomb.



The meal was great and the service was good. Stratos is a definite Taste Buds favorite. BUT I cannot finish this review without the most interesting part of the night. While we were waiting for our food, the power went out! The power went out in a restaurant. That can’t be good right? This has happened to Haley on another occasion and the power stayed off for 40 minutes that time. This time the power was only out for a few minutes, but it was still bewildering/comical to say the least. Luckily we were good sports about it and just kept carrying on our conversations like nothing had happened. Opa!

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