Mediterranean flavours

Published on January 11, 2008

Olive Kebab & Cafe started out as a small Greek-style kebab corner, but has recently sprawled its way into a proper sit-down establishment for people to enjoy a full meal and daydream about the Mediterranean.

The five-year-old establishment is a joint effort between friends Siriluck Lim and Greece-native Elini Karoumpi, who wanted to bring the exotic Greek tastes to Bangkok. Their delicious home-cooked dishes have proven to be popular, with crowds thronging for the healthful meals and crumbles of goat-milk feta cheeses and spiced gyros.

"I fell in love with Greek food when I travelled there. I enjoy the Greek style of sharing food," says Siriluck. "So when the time was right, we decided to bring the cuisine to Bangkok. We precisely stick to the traditional recipes we can afford to do."

The result is a full menu of Greek specialities: gyros, mezze appetisers - which can easily be stretched into a full meal - salads, soups and home-made yoghurt and Greek coffee.

Siriluck imports most of the ingredients from Greece to make sure that the tastes here are not distorted. We started our meal with a plate of fresh Greek salad with feta and kalamata olives (Bt175). Packed with fresh wedges of romaine lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion, the refreshing and superb dish is dressed in tangy vinaigrette, meaty olives, and imported creamy and sharply tasting Greek goat-milk feta cheese.

We then tried Olive's assorted mezze dips - from the cool yoghurt (tzatziki) and scrumptious eggplant-feta (melitzanosalata) to smoothly mashed chick-peas (hummus), zesty roasted red capsicum (piperia) and creamy and spicy feta crumbles (ktipiti). Each dip (Bt70) is served with pita bread to dip into the mezze selections with.

We moved on to filo-pastry appetisers of tyopita (feta-mozzarella), spanakopita (spinach) and kreatopita (beef and chicken) and the tangy dolma or stuffed pickled vine leaves. The pastries were yummy, the filo crust light and crispy and the oozing stuffings were flavoursome. The dolma, with its sharp pickled-vine piquancy, is our favourite. The vine leaf was folded with raw rice and minced meat and braised until cooked. You can also choose between the vegetarian and meat dolmas. Appetisers range from Bt95 to Bt160.

Kebabs are the most popular items at Olive with choices of gyro wrap or souvlaki, which is kebab meat on a skewer. Available meats include chicken, beef, lamb and pork while choices of wraps include traditional white pita bread or regular or whole-wheat tortilla. We went for skewers of lamb and chicken and two pieces of soutzouki or grilled minced beef sausage.

Our selections come with some more pita and the best thing to do is to concoct our own wraps out of bits of bread, meats and loads of leftover mezze dips along with string of fresh onions to spike the flavour.

A souvlaki set is Bt200 to Bt275 with salad or fries, sauce and pita bread. Grilled vegetables, falafel (fried chickpea balls), Greek salad and tuna salad are also available for wraps.

Olive's home-made Greek yoghurt (Bt100) is famous. Siriluck explains that Greek people further the typical yoghurt-making process by hanging the curd for another 10 hours to fortify the substance, resulting in ultra thick and creamy curd best with drizzles of fresh honey and chopped almonds. There are also creamy yoghurt delights - the Greek yoghurt mousse with fruit (Bt70) and home-made baklava, the country's famous walnut pie with honey syrup (Bt150).

For quick bites, Olive's kebab wraps (Bt125 to Bt195/single and Bt215 to Bt285 in set of salad or curly fries and soda) are hearty choices

 Free delivery is available for purchases of more than Bt1,000. Olive's branches include The Emporium's fifth floor food hall and the ground floor at Siam Paragon. Their yoghurt is available at Villa.

For more review s, visit www.ohsirin.blogspot.com.

Olive Kebab & Cafe

Second Floor, CRC Tower, All Seasons Place, Wireless Road (02) 685 3989 Daily 11am to 9pm

Sirin P Wongpanit