Ouzemezedakia at Perama Greek Restaurant, Petersham

I have a dream. A dream to go out for dinner and just order lots of entrées so I could just taste more things. At Perama Greek Restauarant… I was able to do just that! Do you ever find the main dishes at restaurants a tad boring compared to entrees? I’ve been told that the Entrees at a restauarant are often where the chef is able to really shine. The Mains are just stomach fillers! The menu at Perama Greek Restaurant contains a selection of entrees, a selection of mains, desserts and….. what caught the eyes of both Mr FBC and I…. a selection of ouzemezedakia. These were little dishes, sort of like Greek Tapas. I’m always one for variety and selection when it comes to food – especially as I’m a chronic sufferer of the dreaded condition ‘Food-envy-it is’!

To start, we are given a basket of fresh bread which we drizzle olive oil all over and devour.  Mr FBC orders a bottle of Greek 'A' beer.

Complimentary Bread

Greek Beer

In order to try more things, we decided to order about 5 ouzomezedakias (ranging from $5 to $7 each), 2 entrees and a dessert. We were absolutely(!!!) stuffed by the end of the meal and truly lived up to being Mr and Mrs FAT BELLY club. The mains costs about $26-34 so I thought it was pretty good value to just pick 5 ouzomezedakias (let’s call them OMDs for short!).

The first OMD to arrive was the Imambaldi - a stuffed roasted eggplant topped with diced tomotoes, shallots and a dollop of a rich creamy chilli yoghurt.  Delicious flavours.

Imambaldi (stuffed roasted eggplant) $6

Next was the Sheftalies (Cypriot Sausages). These were cute, fat, football shaped meatballs sprinkled with oregano.

Sheftalies (Cypriot Sausage) $6.50

The menu states that it would take 20 minutes to prepare our next OMD, the Handrolled Macedonian Filo Spinach pie. However, we're so busy savouring all the other dishes that 20 minutes whizzes by and we are none the wiser that there was actually a wait for the pie. I have visions of a Greek Ya-Ya handrolling the pie out the back. The pie has layers upon layer of filo, a good portion of spinach and ricotta and is topped with more crispy filo.

Handrolled Macedonian Filo Spinach Pie $6.50

The next dish was the Pork Loukanika, which were juicy BBQ'd pork sausages. These were flavoursome and a squeeze of lemon really brought out the flavour.

Pork Loukankia $7.00

Ok.. Are chips particularly Greek? Who knows… but I do like the thought of my chips being ‘rustic’ and made by a Ya-Ya. It reminds me of the hot chips that my Grandma use to make for my sister and I after school. No kidding..she really did! Hand crinkle cut and all!

The 'Rustic Grandma's Chips' at Peramas do taste home made. They are beautifully fried and all different shapes and sizes, sprinkled with some salt and finely chopped parsley.

Rustic Grandma's Chips $5.00

That was the end of the OMDS. But it's not over yet. We moved onto the Entrees. The first dish we tried was the Smyrna scallops. According to the menu, 'Smyrna' was an ancient greek city on the Turkish coast which was known for its abundant seafood. This dish was made of BBQ scallops served with a crispy sliced spicy turkish sausage (souzouk) and beetroot puree. The puree was pink and sweet... but eventually mixed too much with the other ingredients, making it a bit too pink for my liking.

Smyrna Scallops $18.50

The second entree we tried was the Pork Belly Baklava ($17.80). This dish was made up of layers of flaky filo pastry, pork belly meat, date and pistachios, topped with crispy crackling and drizzled with a date and mastic sauce.

Pork Belly Baklava

I naively thought baklava was a dessert, which was meant to be at the end of the meal. Not at Peramas, where you can get the Pork Belly Baklava as an entree. I thought this would just be a savoury filo pastry. However, the date jam and sprinkling of pistachios provided a very sweet contrast to the pork belly. It’s different…it feels like you’re combining your mains and desserts… but it’s good. Try it.

We really were bursting after the all the OMDs and Entrees. Luckily, I was able to convince Mr FBC to share a dessert with me. Mr FBC thought the Olive Oil ice cream sounded nice (two scoops of Olympia extra virgin olive oil, pistachio and dried fig ice cream).  I thought that sounded like two types of fat for the price of one! Meanwhile, I thought I wanted to try the Caramel Baklava Ice Cream (sliced layers of vanilla bean ice cream, caramel sauce and baklava – there’s a picture on the Perama website). In the end, we went for a relatively healthy (that’s a very loose ‘relatively healthy’) dessert – Melon Thiples Stack ($13.50). This was made of a stack of fried pastry dipped in honey and crushed walnuts with a some lemon curd yoghurt and a chilled salad of rockmelon and honeydew. It was a very refreshing dessert and not to heavy.

Melon Thiples Stack ($13.50)

Mr FBC and I were really impressed with Perama. They appear to show you authentic Greek Cuisine (ie it’s more than just moussaka and soulvaki) and the service is fast and friendly.

Perama Greek Restuarant

88 Audley Street

Petersham 2049

ph: 95697534

perama@iprimus.com.au