"Would you like anything else?"

"Yes, I’ll take a Greek coffee."

"Ummm … what’s Greek coffee?"

A mix of friendliness and incompetence describes both the waitress and the place itself, and I’m afraid the latter property dominates. This was only the second week that Olympic was open, so doubtless they are in the process of ironing out wrinkles—for example, a new menu is in the works, we were told, with lower prices and mezes ("appetizer combination plates" to our waitress)—but the signs, I’m afraid are not positive. The lack of good, authentic Greek cuisine in the Twin Cities persists, and Gardens of Salonica and Christos, despite their shortcomings, remain the restaurants of choice in this ethnic category.

Olympic takes over from Mykonos, another Greek establishment that occupied the same space until it closed up shop last year. The layout and furnishings are largely unchanged, hence stale, although I don’t recall Mykonos having plastic plants, from hanging baskets to potted "trees," in profusion. We were seated under fake blooms, and as soon as we were handed the large-type, charmless, laminated menus that list falafel and gyros together with surf-and-turf plates, B and I thought about leaving. My favorite restaurant in town, Vincent, isn’t that far up the street and I’ve never had lunch there. But we stayed put so you get to read about bad Greek food rather than excellent French food.

I started out with the avgolemono soup, a watery rendition of this lemon-rice-chicken Greek staple that looked like gruel and didn’t taste much better. For my main dish I had the ful mudamas, an Egyptian dish made with dried fava beans (the owner is Egyptian although both the cooks are Greek). This came with a side of hummus and salad. The presentation was particularly unappetizing, the broken up favas filling a bowl with a dark brown mass, and a thin layer of hummus covering most of a dinner plate. The ful mudamas contained a few pieces of onion and tomato; it was garlicky but otherwise tasteless. The hummus tasted slightly bitter.

Not having learned our lesson, we also ordered baklava, taking our waitress at her word that it was very good. Instead, it was dense, damp, and dull—this might be the first time these adjectives have been used to describe this dessert!

Walk to Vincent (or even Jerusalem’s) instead.

All sort of food is passed as Greek to the unsuspecting citizens of Minnesota. Anything south of Italy as far as the middle of Africa and everything to the east of Greece as far as India is fair game. This is a huge swath of the world and includes peoples (and foods) of Greece, Turkey, North Africa, Middle East and the Central Asian Republics. So one is likely to dismiss a Greek restaurant in Minneapolis started by an Egyptian expatriate as a part of this larger scam; but this connection is less tenuous than Iranian sandwich shops passing as purveyors of Greek food, for didn’t Alexander’s legions reach Egypt, and anyone who has either been to Alexandria or has read Durrell's excellent Alexandria Quartet will see the connection.

Disappointingly this is not a place where you’re likely to run into Justine enjoying a cup of Greek coffee! The restaurant is a dismal place with dingy walls, as you walk in there is a little anteroom that fronts the kitchen where you’re as likely to be greeted by the kitchen help as the hostess. The dining room is to the right and is a long rectangular space with booths along one wall and regular tables in the middle. The menu includes traditional Greek and Middle Eastern dishes: kebabs, falafels, lamb, wrap sandwiches and five fish entrees that run the gamut from catfish to (this being Minnesota) walleye. Sadly the Olympic isn’t in possession of a beer & wine license so I ordered lemonade which turned out to be exceedingly sweet and pink. For my entrée I had the falafel plate which came with falafel pieces circling watered down hummus and was entirely without flavor or any other redeeming quality. The accompanying salad consisted of lettuce whose salad days were long gone. Trying to salvage the situation A & I both ordered the baklava dessert which was soft and mushy as if it had set in a fridge for a while after having gotten wet. I returned mine without tasting, A manfully tried to eat his but gave up after a bite or two.