I've visited Molyvos twice in the last five years, and both meals were outstanding. Botsacos pushes the Greek-cuisine envelope by combining traditional Greek preparations that aren't usually seen together. In combinations like crispy cod with marinated beets and skordalia (a potato, garlic and olive oil dip), and pan-seared wild striped bass with wild mushroom stifado (a stew with red wine), he finds a way around the cuisine's traditional lack of sauces. Maybe it isn't authentic, but the results are stunning.
The success of Molyvos inspired a young Greek-American chef named Michael Psilakis to go even wilder at a New York restaurant called Onera, where he became famous for 21st-century Greek dishes like his braised goat moussaka.
Last month, I visited the newly opened Psilakis venture called Dona, an Italian-Greek fusion restaurant on New York's East Side that Psilakis co-owns with the sexy New York restaurant diva Donatella Arpaia. The crusty salt cod with creamy bufala ricotta and skordalia were spectacular. Some of what Psilakis cooks is too over-the-top for even the most adventurous diners. But the buzz he has created has definitely put Greek cooking in the national spotlight.
John Gioldasis, the owner of Alexander the Great Greek, took on the admirable mission of introducing Houston to upscale Greek dining when he first opened the place a little over four years ago. And the fresh fish and seafood dishes he touts are the clearly the best things on the menu.
But Gioldasis didn't want to disappoint people who came looking for conventional Greek food, so the menu includes a section somewhat derisively titled "Old Traditional."
One afternoon my daughter and I split an item from the "Old Traditional" menu called "lunch for two." We started out with the stuffed grape leaves filled with meat and rice called dolmades, here served warm with a white sauce over the top. Then we moved on to the spanakopita, baked phyllo triangles stuffed with a rich and garlicky spinach-and-cheese mixture. There was also some of the salty cheese pie called tiropita on the platter.
All the appetizers were pleasant enough. But what really impressed us were the two big squares that towered over the rest of the food: generous portions of pastitsio and moussaka.
Whenever my daughter gets to decide what we're having for dinner, she asks for baked rigatoni. So the pastitsio was right up her alley. The layers of tomato and meat sauce, cheese and pasta might remind you of lasagna. But instead of sheets of pasta, the Greek dish is made with layers of pasta tubes. If you like lasagna, you can't help but love pastitsio.
The stunning moussaka at Alexander the Great Greek is made with a rich meat mixture seasoned with tomato sauce and aromatic spices including cinnamon and cumin. The meat is moist enough to hold the slices of cooked eggplant together. The combination of the spicy meat and the comfortingly bland béchamel are a culinary yin and yang that balance out on your palate.
Alexander the Great Greek is doing a good job of being all things to all people. Not only is the new Greek cuisine excellent, they do the best job in town on the traditional stuff. They also serve a gyro sandwich at lunch that's very good, though the french fries aren't as good as the ones you get with the pita sandwiches at Yia Yia Mary's.
At the next table, two fashionable young women were eating enormous salads. One had a piece of grilled salmon on top, and the other had some grilled chicken breast. It's odd that the Greek salad with lots of lettuce topped with grilled chicken, fish or gyro meat has become such a standard of Greek-American restaurants, considering that they don't eat much lettuce in Greece.
"If you want lettuce in a Greek salad in Greece, you have to ask for an American salad," Steve Louis told us over dinner the night of the floor show.
"The American version of Greek food -- Greek salads and gyro sandwiches -- is like the fast food you get in Athens," he continued. "But you don't see that kind of food in rural Greece."
Authenticity is subjective, but Steve said Alexander the Great Greek reminded him of the little restaurants of the Greek islands, where fish and vegetables are roasted early in the day and then displayed on platters on sideboards or windowsills. You just pick what you want and eat it at room temperature, he explained.
Shortly after we sat down, while we were ordering our dinner, a middle-aged Greek woman who looked a bit like Melina Mercouri in her later years came by our table and introduced herself. Voula Kouluriotu was her name, and she told us she was taking over the restaurant. Rumor has it that John Gioldasis is moving to Austin to start a new career.
