One of the problems with a blog like ours is how to truly taste one country’s cuisine via a two-course meal (or three if we’re particularly hungry). Lemonia had a solution to this problem—its mixed meze option, which showcases a huge portion of its Greek Cypriot menu. For £18.50 a head, they gave us pretty much all of the cold mezes on the menu, a large proportion of the hot meze, and—they really should have warned us to leave room for this—a selection of the main dishes.
Even after the first round of cold mezes we were comfortably full. There were dips of pretty much every Greek variety, from tzatziki to taramosalata, as well as salads and some cold shrimp. Of all the dips, I kept returning to a tasty tuna concoction, and, of course, the hummus. We made the mistake of trying to finish everything in front of us, forgetting that we had two further rounds to eat.
The hot mezes which followed were even better than the cold. Fried calamari was just right, neither too rubbery nor too crispy; grilled halloumi was also on just the right side of the rubbery/soft balance. There were spinach and feta pies, sausages, and yet another round of shrimp, this time fried and the better of the two shrimp dishes.
After an hour or so of eating we finally got onto the main course, with assorted chicken and lamb souvlaki, small lamb chops and a salad. Sadly the lamb was slightly overcooked, and our tongues so drowned in the Cypriot red wine and the tastes from the previous courses that it was hard to tell the different flavours apart in the souvlaki. Maybe I should have just stopped eating after the spinach pie.
As world cuisine geeks, we did wonder if we’d tried anything distinctively Cypriot. Maria—who hails from Greece and heartily approves of the place—confirmed that Greek Cypriot cooking is indeed quite similar to Greek. Halloumi is the national cheese of Cyprus though, and served with lountza (smoked pork lion, another local speciality), was perhaps the most Cypriot dish on the menu.
In hindsight, one of the best parts of this meal was the overall feel of the evening. We were never rushed, and through the general décor of the restaurant, it did feel like an evening in the Mediterranean. On emerging from the place at 11pm, I had three final thoughts: “We’re back in reality again”, “We really should have had this meal for lunch”, and “I am so, so full”.
In summary
Lemonia
89 Regent’s Park Road, Chalk Farm, NW1 8UY
020 7586 7454
Lunch from noon to 3pm Mon to Fri, and noon-3.30pm Sun; Dinner from 6 to 11.30pm Mon to Sat.
Moving To London wrote,
That’s more like it. I’m learning new menu for my resto.
Link | September 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 am
The Argentine Meal: Buen Ayre, London Fields, Hackney wrote,
[...] there have been a few particularly extreme cases—stumbling home after multi-course feasts at Lemonia and the Old Justice, for example, I’ve sworn never to eat [...]
Link | October 7th, 2009 at 7:50 pm