A Return Visit To The Mad Greek

One of the first places I ever wrote about here on Exploring Food My Way was a stop for lunch at an old college haunt, the Mad Greek. Having moved out of Cleveland in 1997, I don't tend to get back for a meal very often. Historically, when I have come for a visit, there were other places I absolutely had to hit (like Grum's). Sadly, this meant that the Mad Greek was usually overlooked. From what I had heard from other Cleveland food friends, the quality of the food also suffered from too much fluctuation, teetering between great and horrible.

With my current client (my day job) being just outside of the Case Western Reserve campus, I suddenly had the opportunity to try this stalwart out once again. Seeing as it had been forever and a day since I had hooked up with a college mentor and friend, Paul, I suggested we head there for lunch. Paul agreed and before you knew it, we had pulled into the parking lot behind the set of storefront shops that housed the restaurant.

The Mad Greek was located at 2466 Fairmount Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44106 and can be reached at 216-421-3333. Their website can be located here. There was streetside parking, but most every time I've come to eat here, I've utilized the previously mentioned lot that was behind the building.

Here was a shot of the entrance to the Mad Greek:


Once inside, we were shown to a small table near the rear of the restaurant. Our hostess handed us menus and left us to peruse them:






When our server stopped back to take our order, Paul asked her if they had a specialty. "Palak Tikka, " she responded quickly. Seeing Paul's confused look on his face, she continued, "It's a curried spinach and chicken dish that is served with Jasmine rice." Apparently satisfied with her description, Paul ordered that dish, spice level 4 (see photo above for explanation of spice levels).

I, on the other hand, already knew I was in the mood for Palak Paneer. Instead of spinach and chicken, mine was spinach and cheese. Originally turned on to this Indian specialty by my Scranton-based friend Chris, once I got over how it looked, I was once and forever hooked on how wonderful it tasted. The menu didn't list Palak Paneer, per se, but under the menu item "Paneer," it gave you the option of a spinach curry or a tomato-based treatment. Clearly I choose spinach and I ordered mine spice level 3.

Before our server left, I asked Paul if he wanted to split an appetizer and after agreeing, I completed our order with something from the Greek side of the menu, Saganaki. After our server retreated to the kitchen to place our order, Paul, looking a little confused, said, "I thought this was supposed to be the Mad GREEK. What's with all the Indian food?" I explained that the restaurant had always had this dual personality (at least as far back as I can remember) and besides, the Saganaki we were about to enjoy was from the Greek side of the menu.

Our server soon returned with a pile of the always awesome warmed and fresh pita wedges:


From what I've gathered through anecdotal evidence, the fresh pitas were first brushed with some type of oil before being lightly grilled on the flattop. These are so good that 9 times out of 10, we always have to ask for more to accompany our appetizers. Today's version was equally as delicious as those I remember from my college days. At least that hadn't changed.

After laying down the pita bread on our table, our server got busy doing the final presentation of the Saganaki. Saganaki is traditionally made from a Greek cheese called Kasseri. The cheese was first baked, brought to the table and then flamed tableside for maximum effect. Doused with a little bit of lemon juice, it was then cut up and eaten with the pita bread.

Here was a shot of the now doused Saganaki:


Kasseri was such an ideal cheese for this dish because it doesn't get all melty and gooey as something like Mozzarella would. The combination of the strong salty cheese with a bit of acidity from the lemon juice and the faint flavor of the rum / brandy combination used to flame the cheese all combined to make this dish quite delicious. Paul had never had anything like it before and asked if he could take the rest home for his wife to try. While it probably wouldn't be as good cold as it was piping hot out of the kitchen, I certainly wasn't going to be the one to deny him that pleasure.

Several minutes later, our lunches arrived at the table. Here was a shot of my Paneer dish:


Paul's dish was nearly identical except that in his, he had large chunks of chicken; mine were cubes of cheese. Upon closer inspection of the spinach and cheese portion of my entrée,


I noticed the presence of chickpeas as well. Now, the mere presence of chickpeas in Indian cuisine is not what surprised me. I have had plenty of tasty dishes containing this legume. What surprised me were their presence in THIS dish. Just like spinach and chicken and spinach and cheese, there was also another classic Indian dish, Palak Chana, that was essentially spinach and chickpeas. The Mad Greek's version had sort of combined Palak Paneer and Palak Chana into one hybrid dish. Alright, enough with the nitpicking ... how did it taste?

In a word, tasty. The spice level on mine, a 3 if you remember, was just perfect. I'd say for me it was right around a medium spice level (even though the scale indicated medium hot). Paul's, a 4, was pretty darn hot. With two additional levels of heat available, Paul confessed that he couldn't imagine what a 6 would be like. The curry flavor on my dish was nicely balanced with the other flavors on the dish. The spinach tasted fresh and the chickpeas added a nice crunchy element to each bite. The rice, fresh and studded with various spices and nuts, was also quite good.

Overall, I really enjoyed my lunch today at the Mad Greek. If they had suffered from quality issues before, today proved to dispel those rumors completely for me. Since they are so close to where I currently work, I suspect I will be going back for a few more meals over the next year, so any irregularities should present themselves by then. But as far as my experiences have been so far, I would suspect that you, too, will have a positive experience, whether you eat from the Greek menu, the Indian menu, or both.

Weekend in Cleveland

On the first Thursday of every month, the only surviving member of the First String Band plays with fellow musicians at the Barking Spider on Case Western's campus in University Circle. Every six months or so, myself and a few other fraternity brothers will take a road trip back to Cleveland to hear this ensemble play. It's a great way to relive a bit of our past glory, catch up on what is going on in each of our lives and in general, just a nice way to spend an evening. We also usually take the next day off of work and bum around, revisiting some of the old restaurants and haunts we did in days past.

So it goes again. Even though yesterday was January 1st, it turns out that the Spider would be open and the group we wanted to hear would be performing. So we checked into our room at Glidden House (CONVENIENTLY located right next door to the Barking Spider) and headed to Coventry to see what was open for dinner.

We decided to eat at a new place, Tree Country Bistro, located where the Que Tal used to be. It is now a Japanese / Korean / Thai restaurant. This appealed to all of our group since we could each get what we wanted. My friend Mike ordered sushi, and ended up getting the Snow Mountain:


He reports that this was quite good. It had tempura eel that was then wrapped in a maki style roll and topped with crabmeat (well, the fake kind used in California rolls). I decided to go with a Thai curry and opted for the green chicken curry:


It also had peas, green beans, bamboo shoots, green peppers and eggplant. The flavor was excellent, but the heat level was nowhere near what I had asked for (confirmed by another taster in our group who also likes spicy foods). I ordered this Thai spicy. I even went so far as to say, "Not American Spicy. Thai Spicy." And what did I get? Barely warmer than mild. As with other Asian restaurants, I am finding that just because the menu says that spice levels are 1-3 or 1-5, the upper number is never the absolute limit. When I brought the spice level issue up with our waitress, she only then admitted that Thai spicy was probably closer to 5 than a 3 (which according to our menu was the spiciest level). *Sigh*

Today for lunch we decided to hit up an old favorite, the Mad Greek on Fairmount in Cleveland Heights. This has always been a favorite of mine as they make such an excellent grilled pita (I know, it's the simple things in life, isn't it?). The prices were noticeably higher than they have been in the past and the lunch menu was a much more pared down from what we've seen the previous times we went. However, the foods and flavors were outstanding. We decided to start by splitting an order of hummos and grilled pita bread:


It almost looks like a bowl of oatmeal, but I can assure you it isn't. This was very good, if not a bit too much of tahini in the hummos. The grilled pita is like crack and you most assuredly will run out of it before you finish the amount of hummos they give you. Fortunately, additional pita is free of charge. The pita is reasonably fresh and what really gives it it's "crack-like" status is that before serving it, they brush each side with olive oil and throw it on the flat top to slightly caramelize each side. So, so good.

For my lunch I decided to go with a standard: gyro with fries.


The fries were quite good, crispy and hot. The gyro was also delicious, with its blend of spiced meat, the tomatoes, onions and the yogurt sauce.

Tonight we'll be tackling another favorite old haunt, the Euclid Tavern. More on that in my next post.