Cuisine: Greek
Do you like garlic, Johnny? Well do I have the joint for you! But you will have to have the allium stamina if you’re to survive Stamna! That’s wordplay. Poor wordplay. But, seriously, you will not want for flavor when dipping into Stamna’s dips. Or housing their platters of meats and sides. It’s a panoply of Greek delights. A mouthful of Hellenic hallelujah. It’s food is what I’m saying. And popular food at that. As Stamna is seemingly always teeming with diners looking to get their opa on.
Ms. Hipster and I swore we’d go here for years. After all, I’m a big fan of ordering souvlaki at diners. Most of which around us are ostensibly Greek-owned. Or Greek-tinged. So I figure they have a leg up on the Mediterranean thing. It’s not all about pancakes, people. Point is, I’m a fan of the food genre and will always love me some skewered chicken served with pita and a yogurt-based dip. The couple we hunkered down with for lunch were veterans of Stamna and already had some ideas in mind. The first of which was an appetizer of assorted cold dips. Which to me means some yogurt thing, hummus and baba ganoush… And then I remember when a plate of unidentifiable white stuff shows up that Greek and Mediterranean food are two different things. And, yes, Greece is in the Mediterranean, but when I sometimes think I’m eating Greek, I’m actually eating something closer to Turkish. And while some of the dips may have similar ingredients, they aren’t what you’d necessarily expect. At Stamna, they were Tzatziki (which we know), fava (pureed split pea?), skordalia (garlic & potato), melitzanosalata (roasted eggplant) and taramosalata (salted fish roe). It was a whole lot of garlic. The skordalia alone could keep a colony of vampires from invading the Greek isles for centuries. And salt. The taramosalata doing its best imitation of the sea in which the isles float. The consistency is all kind of vaguely mushy with varying degrees of enjoyment depending on your garlic, salt and mush tolerance. But overall, I enjoyed it — or at least more of it — than some of my tablemates. If not for some of its bizarreness and my deep-seated hatred of wasting food.
I went for the chicken souvlaki platter with fries, because of course I did. It was a lot of food, but I am a bottomless pit of a human being. And I love cubes of chicken. Like the dips, the garlic and salt were certainly very forward, but the Tzatziki smoothed some of that out. It was only after getting home that I found myself chugging water like a lunatic. It was tasty, though, so I’ll suffer through the garlic hangover for it. Ms. Hipster got the chicken gyro, which has a significantly different texture and appearance than my souvlaki. As well it should. It was your more typical shawarma shaved-meat form, drier, thinner slice of chicken pilled high on her plate in an almost laughable mound. I knew I’d be having that shiz for lunch the next day. And I was right. Frankly — and I’m a person who also enjoys the textural intrigue of meat cut off a spit — it was a bit overcooked or just felt like it should have been a little more moist despite its thin. curled form. Again, though, more salt. Which gave it flavor, but increased an already sodium-doused meal. Honestly, it almost tasted better the next day reheated. Which I know seems weird, but sometimes that happens.
Overall, I’m certainly glad we finally made our way here. The grub was plentiful and definitely packed in the flavor. You might want to bring one of those gallon-sized water jugs for you car afterwards and perhaps a box of Tic Tacs if you want to spare your date the garlic aftermath. But the food certainly feels authentic and the atmosphere is lively. I can see why people like it here. I’m sure we’ll be back — as it only took us seventeen years to get our dumb selves here for the first time.
1055 Broad St. – Bloomfield
973/338-5151
stamnataverna.com
