Greco’s delights with a generous and affordable dining experience

RESTAURANT REVIEW 

Grecos 

167 Princess St. 

BY CRAIG KESTLE AND LESLIE PULEY 

Grecos can be added to the ever-growing group of fine restaurants in Kingston. Although reservations are preferred, Greco’s was able to seat us on a Thursday evening at prime dinner time. We were escorted to a quaint table for two situated at the front of the restaurant near its big glass window providing a view of Princess Street. With the light sound of romantic guitar and the dimly lit setting, we pondered over the expansive wine list. After soaking in the atmosphere and relaxing in the warm environment, our waiter arrived and the dinner proceedings began. 

The first of our many decisions started with the wine menu, which offers 20 bottles from nine different countries ranging in price from $16 to $36 a bottle. Naturally, Greek wine is the safe call at Grecos, and we chose the Peloponnesiakos-Achaia; a dry wine. At first glance, Grecos ap-pears to be an expensive restaurant, unaffordable for most ghetto-dwelling students. Between the appetizers, traditional dishes, Greek delicacies, pasta and gourmet pizza, however, Grecos’s menu has a slice fit for almost everyone. 

For those vegetarians, however, there is not much of a selection to be found at this restaurant. The veggie cabobs were the only veggie entree, with the exception of a pizza and certain pasta dishes. From the spaghetti at $7.25 to the platinum card holder’s rack of lamb at $19.95, the price range is definitely conducive to pleasing more customers. 

For starters, we ordered the mussels and a small Greek salad. 

Although Leslie originally ordered the salmon entree, our imposing waiter said, “You’d rather have the perch special, believe me.” Hence, we both ordered two of the specials that were being offered that night. The first included fresh ocean perch, vegetables and potatoes. The second was a linguini disk served with a very hot garlic-basil tomato sauce, a tender, sliced breast of chicken topped off with a handful of jalapenos. On top of both main courses we added three breaded jumbo tiger shrimp, for only an extra fin. 

With the bottle of wine, two appetizers, two dinner plates and complimentary Greek bread, our table was too small to fit everything, and as embarrassing as it seems, we had to move to a larger table. 

The meal was absolutely delicious. We both decided we couldn’t possibly order dessert there. However, our waiter insisted we go home with a doggy bag; not only did he pack up our selected piece of the super chocolate brownie pie with an oreo crust, but he also added the peanut butter crunch mousse pie, simply because we seemed interested. 

We have both decided that Grecos will become more of a regular event — that is once we recover from our first trip. Maybe next time we’ll try their lunch menu. Thumbs up, full stars, exclamation marks and all that jazz; Grecos puts on an exceptional performance.