The Lunch found itself in Nordeast again this week, in that part of town (as I’ve noted often enough before) that has undergone a yuppie- plus gentri-fication over the last decade or so. Our venue, Gardens of Salonica, was probably the harbinger of gastronomic sophistication in the neighborhood.

When establishments in an area are virtually universally of the old-world school (think Nye’s Polonaise Room, Kramaczuk’s East European Deli, and Totino’s Italian Kitchen—hmm, I wonder why we haven’t been to any of these in reviewer capacity?) opening a hipper, more urbane restaurant can be a high-risk undertaking. But Gardens gauged the changing demographics of this part of the city right, and, to appearances anyway, it’s made a successful go. There’s been a gradual upgrading of décor, now featuring stone-and-iron sculptures and a water fountain in the dining room, and of space—the restaurant has expanded into the next-door storefront, turning it into a bar-cum-dining-area that can be rented out for private parties.

The Gardens’s signature food item is the "boughatsa^TM." (The trademark symbol included on legal advice—a couple of years ago another restaurant attempted to include boughatsas on its menu and lawyers got involved.) These are triangular phyllo pastry pies and can be ordered with a variety of fillings, and are small enough that you can easily sample two or three for lunch.

Other items on the menu include a variety of very sharable appetizers, some salads, several entrées, including both standard and, for the Twin Cities at any rate, nonstandard fare, pitzas^TM, sandwiches, and dessert. (This trademarking of dish names is taking things too far, if you ask me.)

There are many ways to do lunch at Gardens. You can just order some appetizers, making up a combination plate for $7.25. The selections here are vegetarian with the exception of braised octopus in vinaigrette. Recommendations, on an incomplete sampling from several past visits, include the piaz (black-eyed peas, onions, parsley, with olive oil and lemon juice), anginares (artichoke hearts, similarly dressed), puréed fava beans, likewise, and a puréed eggplant dish, melitzana. Although ingredients are quite varied, the preparations are similar, so there’s likely to be a certain sameness to the appetizer combo lunch.

Alternatively, you could go the entrée route, getting a Greek salad or soup in the bargain. Classics available include dolmades or rice-stuffed grape leaves, pastitsio—sort of a Greek lasagna with a béchamel topping—and both ground beef and meatless mousaka. Lamb (organic) is a featured meat and can be had as a roasted, boneless leg with oven-browned potatoes and with orzo (Greek pasta in the form of long grains of rice). Usually one or two of the daily specials, listed on a blackboard in the entranceway, are lamb dishes too; on this day it was braised lamb shank with hearts of romaine. At least one of the specials is a seafood one; often stuffed squid. If it’s fish you’re seeking, a baked cod entrée is also available.

Gardens also offers platters to share, in both small and large sizes, and consisting of an entrée of your choice along with a selection of two from gyros, pork or lamb skewers, chicken breast, and soutzoukaki (seasoned beef links).

The boughatsas and sandwiches round out the meal choices. The latter include the obligatory gyros, souvlaki (broiled chicken breast, lamb, or pork tenderloin), and a very basic vegetarian (tomato and onion). The sandwiches come in pita, dressed in tzatziki, and with crisp, thinly cut Greek fries.

Boughatsas also feature on the dessert list, with fillings such as a blend of apricots, cream cheese, honey, and spice. Also included are port-wine-poached figs, a Greek-style rice pudding, and a "baklava sundae."

We started by sharing the melitzana, which came with a sufficient quantity of pita bread. The eggplant had been puréed until creamy, and the other, more fibrous ingredients in the purée—parsley, onion, and garlic—left a bit of a crunch. A refreshing and tasty dish, and Gardens’ pita—which isn’t the thin, dry excuse that you find in some places (e.g., see later) but a more breadlike, pocketless variety—facilitates its consumption.

For my main dish I had the lamb with orzo entrée, opting for the Greek salad accompaniment. The salad was adequate, with feta that was too mild for my jaded taste cells, very tired tomato slices, and no peppercini. "Adequate" probably best describes the lamb and orzo too. The orzo was cooked well but it was clumping together and the lamb, although tender, had that "organic" air about it.

I ended with a Greek coffee, ordered medium sweet; better than adequate on this account.

With its wine bar next door, Gardens has an extensive Greek wine selection although we weren’t handed a wine list. Going on past memory that’s become failure-prone, I ordered a Nemea, a soft, round red with little fruit or complexity. B’s selection, a random pick from among a few wines our waitress mentioned, had more character.

If we were grading on a cuisine-specific curve, Gardens would be way up there. As it is, the food is passable but hardly special. In other respects, however, Gardens is an enjoyable, friendly, and pleasant destination for lunch. The large west-facing windows letting in lots of light, the interplay of the stone-and-iron sculptures and the numerous plants, the pastel-rose walls and the painted tin ceiling—with a large modernist wood (I think) sculpture suspended from it … and yet the restaurant has more of a rustic than a refined feel. Whether you’re a newly arrived yuppie in Nordeast or part of the neighborhood’s traditional scene, you can feel welcome here.

If you ever felt the need for a restaurant that’s a little more than a fast food place, yet not dauntingly priced for an everyday lunch, where a glass of wine is not incongruous but a hamburger is, then this is the place for you. It’s easy to miss the restaurant entirely, sitting as it does in an old brick faced building, with the faded sign proclaiming it to the world merging easily into the equally faded wall. Inside is pleasant enough with a blue and white color scheme that works well with the wooden floor. An enormous wooden object d'art hangs—dangerously by my reckoning—from the ceiling; what it is is anyone’s guess.

We got there early, bagging one of the better tables near the window. Later the restaurant became quite full making for tight quarters. I started with a glass of Kouros red, which surprised me by being quite delicious. The menu lists fourteen appetizer that range from the Greek salad to Octapodi (braised octopus). I shared the melitzana (eggplant pureed with olive oil, green onions, parsley, garlic and seasoning) with A; it’s served with warm pita bread and had a piquantly sharp taste—the eggplant flavor almost devoured by the garlic and lemon juice, enjoyable nevertheless. Before ordering from the menu be sure to look at the specials chalked on a little green board by the entrance. The menu gets full marks for catering to vegetarian tastes and I counted at least three dishes: yigandes (lima beans baked with vegetables), ambelodoldolmades (rolled grape leaves stuffed with seasoned rice and served with a yogurt sauce) and vegetarian mousakas. Besides the majority of Boughatsa (hand rolled fillo pastries) have vegetarian fillings. The other entrées are standard Greek offerings consisting of lamb, beef and pork of which the orzo arni (braised lamb simmered with Greek pasta in red sauce). For my entrée I chose from the sandwiches part of the menu, the gyros (a pita rolled around an aromatic mixture of lamb and beef). I chose this because I know that Garden’s of Slonica serves the best gyros in town and I wasn’t disappointed. The sandwich is just the right size and served so that it can be consumed without making too much of a mess. Did I mention that it’s spicy? Just make sure that you don’t have to attend a postprandial meeting! A finished with a Greek coffee and for once we were not tempted by the dessert menu passing on the assorted baklava, Greek style chocolate & etc. The bill for a more than passable lunch came to about $30.00.

From our last review you will have noticed the inclusion of pictures. Let me tell you taking pictures, as A does, with a pen sized camera can cause consternation among the ranks of restaurant owners and wait staff. The owners of GOS viewed us with a good deal of suspicion. We waited till the end of our meal before revealing our true purpose behind taking those pictures. One can see their point, we could easily have been lawyers (or agents of) taking pictures before commencing a ruinously expensive lawsuit. Even our note taking was viewed (and questioned) with distrust. As it happens we were discussing (and sketching) a new theory about the variability of the speed of light and also, incidentally, about VPNs. This (truthful) explanation was received with a derisive snort.

B