This past Saturday night found us at a Greek Restaurant near the Santa Justa train station in Sevilla.  Restaurante Griego Helas wasn’t hard to find but finding a parking space in that neighborhood was luck of the draw.

We were almost 30 minutes late for an 8:15 PM reservation but it didn’t matter since we were still the first ones in the place and were well into our entrees before any other tables were seated.  The Spanish eat at a predictable 10 PM every night.  The owner who had taken my call for reservations spoke pretty good English but let me practice my broken Spanish on him anyway.  the restaurant, although quite small was totally full when we left around 10:30 PM.

Our friend had translated the menu into English before we arrived using the list of dishes from the website but the menu at the restaurant was more extensive than what was listed on their site.  We took about 20 minutes to order because we couldn’t decide what we wanted and were very disappointed when the young waiter told us they only had enough meat for one gyro. 

We started off with two Greek salads, a tzatitzki dip, an eggplant dip, saganaki (large squares of spiced and grilled feta cheese) and orders of pita for everyone.  The Greek salads were huge and delicious.  Large chunks of feta, cucumber, ripe roma tomatoes, onion, kalamata olives, and green bell pepper drizzled with an olive oil vinaigrette.  The tzatziki and eggplant dip were tasty and full of garlic but quite expensive at over 6 Euros a piece for a saucer-sized serving.  The saganaki were served surrounded by slices of ripe tomatoes and were perfectly grilled, not too mushy.  The pita was a little oily but obviously homemade and served warm, dthick and soft.  But at over 2 Euros for a saucer-sized pita, these were a little pricey too.

As for entrees, we let Michelle order the sole gyro platter, and her husband Shane ordered Bifteki Helas (a large Greek hamburger patty stuffed with feta cheese).  Joe ordered the Kokkinisto (greek meatballs in a savory tomato sauce served over rice, I ordered the Berenjena Relleno (eggplant stuffed with meat and vegetable stuffing, topped with cheese and then baked in the oven).  Other friends ordered the Langostinos Helas (bacon-wrapped shrimp skewers) and a chicken dish I forget the name of but was a half roasted chicken served over spaghetti with the same savory tomato sauce from the Kokkinisto.  The entrees were relatively inexpensive, ranging in price from 8 – 12 Euros a plate.  The pasta and rice dishes were served a la carte but the rest of us got sides of fried potato slices and a simple cabbage salad.

Dessert was a gooey slice of baklava shared by the whole table.  It was not the best baklava we’d ever had but satisfied our need for something sweet.

Beer and tintos were moderately priced at around 2 Euros and water was 1,60 Euro a bottle.

Griego Helas is obviously a mom and pop shop and the family staff was helpful and friendly.  Although it wasn’t the best Greek food any of us had ever eaten it was definitely good to try something new.  We will probably return to Griego Helas again unless we can find another Greek restaurant to try in the Sevilla area.  Grade B-

After dinner we wandered across the street towards the train station and saw a large tent filled with picnic tables and food counters.  There were huge slabs of ribs

fresh boiled Galician octopus

and sheet pan sized empanadas.

Too bad we were too stuffed to partake but Joe and Shane quickly found the beverage counter.