Souvla
1/F Ho Lee Commercial Building, 40 D’Aguilar Street, Central
Tel: 2522 1823
Open: noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm (Sunday last orders around 10.45pm)
Cuisine: Greek
Price: about HK$400 without drinks. There’s no service charge.
Ambience: lively, noisy and fun. Servers are friendly and quick to make recommendations. The large space has a long bar at one end and a dining area at the other.
Pros: the showcase of the dining area is the open kitchen which has a rotisserie that shows a tempting display of meats being cooked.
Cons: we enjoyed most of the food, but some prices were not justified. The grilled lamb ribs had good flavour, but we weren’t sure why the dish cost HK$315. We had the same issue with the moussaka. The dish of layered meat, eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes and béchamel was comforting, but HK$215 seemed expensive. The desserts were disappointing. The golden Greek time (HK$100) made us realise that deep-fried ice cream is better as a concept than reality, because in order to execute this dish successfully the ice cream has to be frozen too hard and the coating needs to be thick and sturdy. The baklava cigars with almond, chocolate and cinnamon (HK$75) were too heavy.
Recommended dishes: the taramasalata (HK$85) had a light, smooth texture and balanced flavours. Octopus sti skara (HK$225) showcased pieces of the tentacles that were lightly charred and very tender. Our favourite dish was the crab souva (HK$75), an excellent sandwich of pita bread wrapped around fried soft shell crab that was crisp outside and succulent within.
