Opa!

I first heard the word, "Opa!" from my best friend from middle school, who happened to be hardcore Greek! It was like a party word or something... like something exciting!

I immediately Opa!-ed when i had my first bite of food at Elia Taverna in Chester Heights/Bronxville.

As you can tell from my blog posts, I really haven't been eating out a lot. Primarily because I really have NO money, but also because I was so damn busy I couldn't even make time to go out to dinner with mommy!

Sad.

Well, now that I am not in school (I took a semester off), and I am unemployed (I've applied to approximately 20 different places including a window cleaning service company!), I really have a lot of time to just work out and eat. Yay!

When I made a date with my mom and my brother, my obvious first choice was to check out Elia Taverna, because I had been hearing so many good things about the place! And when I looked online, I literally only found ONE negative review! That's pretty good :-0

When I first got there, I approached the hostess and said, "I have an appointment at 6," where she proceeded to say, "you have reservations at 6?" Of course... my vocabulary is so not in tact right now!

The waiters were fab, and the food was fab! There is seriously nothing else to it. The inside is cute and casual. By the time we were finishing up at around 7, the place was getting packed! And it was a Tuesday!

Here is is:
Pita and Olives

Melitzanosalata (Roasted Eggplant Dip)

Ktapodi (Charcoal Grilled Octopus with Red Wine Vinegar & Greek Olive Oil)

Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)

Garides Santorini (Greek Style Shrimp, sautéed with Tomato & Feta Cheese)

Lamb Kebob (with Lemon Potatoes, Tzatsiki, and Rice)


We definitely ordered like the most popular dishes because I always ask waiters their recommendation! And they were all winners. I can't even say which one my favorite was. The tomato sauce that the shrimp was in was amazing, the octopus was SO tender, the lamb was flavorful and cooked perfectly... ugh obviously I was having food orgasms left, right, and center! Oh and the eggplant dip! I loved the pepper kick at the end!

How can I forget dessert? At this point we were all about to like bust out of our pants. But there's always a little room for dessert before you break open the seams of your pants.
We tried something new! No baklava for us... we tried the:
Galaktoboureko which is a Custard Filling in Phyllo Dough, topped with Honey Syrup (I obviously copied that right from the website :-)

It was very good! not too sweet, and the consistency of the custard reminded me of Chawanmushi which is a Japanese dish. It is a steamed egg custard. It was similar to this except this desert is obviously sweet, and Chawanmushi is not.

Lastly, I have a new restaurant owner crush! It's Rui Cunha <3 He was so cute! And he showed us the new area of the restaurant! He was SO freaken gracious!


Elia Taverna
502 New Rochelle Road
Bronxville, NY 10708
Phone: (914)-663-4976

I doubt they will like close down any time soon because they are getting mad business but don't wait! It's soooooooooo good!