Athenian Greek Restaurant

Athenian Greek Restaurant  is a classic and upper class restaurant located in an old bank building very close to Wynyard station. The first time I visited the Athenian Greek Restaurant was on my 20th birthday and for the second time this time it was for lunch with my friends after donating blood at Red Cross.

Athenian Greek Restaurant  is very elegant and looks like a very expensive upper class restaurant mostly aimed towards more older aged,office worker,rich old men type customers (lol). 

Outside the restaurant you'll be welcomed by a grand statue of Athena the Greek Goddess and as soon as you enter the restaurant your eyes will straight away widen towards the big halls,the tall Greek style columns and high ceilings and the Greek inspired mural painted on the walls.
Now me and my friends came here for lunch so it was really empty but I believe from the many tables in this restaurant that it might get very busy at nights. We were welcomed by a smartly dressed waiter who ushered us to our seats and handed us our menus. After a few minutes of figuring out what to order we finally were ready to order.For appetizers we ordered Greek pita bread with Taramasalata dip and tzatziki dip and for mains Miss M ordered Vienna Schnitzel,Miss B ordered Lamb Souvlaki with chips and salad,Miss K ordered Grilled Grain Fed Porter House Steak with Diane sauce and I ordered Grilled Chicken Fillet with white wine,cream,mushrooms and shallot sauce and hand cut chips. The waiter we had today was very unfocused and unprofessional and wasn't even paying attention when i was giving my orders,i had to repeat to him twice my orders for him to get it correct.

It took quite a long time for our meals to arrive i believe around 30 minutes. It took more then 15 minutes for our appetizers to arrive,and by this time we were feeling really really hungry so when the appetizers did arrive we straight away jumped on to the pita bread and dips.

Greek pita bread ($6.00)with Taramasalata dip and Tzatziki dip ($10.00)

The pita breads were so aromatic and nice and had a slight taste of dukkah (Middle eastern spices) on the bread as well. The dips were very tasty and matched quite well with the pita bread. The taramasalata was slightly salty but it it matched well with the bread and the tzatziki had a great burst of flavour and was very similar to the Indian raita dip.

After 15 minutes more finally our mail meals arrived.All the meals were piping hot and the portions were HUGE.

Vienna Schnitzel with Chips and Salad ($20.50)Miss M's Vienna Schnitzel looked very appetizing and reminded me of crumbed eggplants. I didn't try her meal as it was beef but she said that the schnitzels were very dry and very hard to chew on,not at all moist as you would imagine with schnitzels. Her chips as you can see from the photo above were very dry and didn't look like the chips were made fresh to order.

Lamb Souvlaki with chips and salad ($25.50)

Miss B's lamb souvlaki was so big and i did get a chance to try this and to both our dismay this dish wasn't good as well. The lamb had lack of flavour and was very bland and very hard to chew and swallow. We had to chew for more then a minute to actually be able to swallow the lamb pieces. The salad was alright however the chips again were dry,lack of flavour and old.I always expected lamb souvlaki's be full of flavour with garlic and herbs but this lamb souvlaki tasted like you were chewing on boiled lamb pieces.

Grilled Grain Fed Porter House Steak with Diane sauce ($26.50)

Miss K's Grilled Grain Fed Porter House Steak with Diane sauce  may look small but it was very filling for Miss K, she couldn't even finish it all.As this dish was beef again therefore i couldnt try therefore i documented Miss Ks veiws towards this dish. The steak and thin slices of garlic on top and the sauce was very salty for Miss K and overpowered the flavour of the steak and again the chips were old and yuck.

Grilled Chicken Fillet with white wine,cream,mushrooms and shallot sauce ($23.50)
 I was very excited in trying my Grilled Chicken Fillet with white wine,cream,mushrooms and shallot sauce as i have never tried any dish with white wine used in it plus it had mushrooms which is my favorite vegetable currently.The chicken filled was very big and i didn't get a chance to finish it all as i was full to the max.The chicken filled had lack of flavorful and salt and the sauce tasted a bit strange for me.It might me because i haven't tried this type of sauce before but i found it tasted too cheesy for me and the flavor overpowered the taste of the mushrooms and i couldn't even taste the shallot element in this dish.The mushrooms were quite big and meaty but it couldn't taste any mushroom flavour due to the sauce.I believe that they used to much of the cream in the sauce which reduced the taste of the other ingredients. Plus i found a hair in my meal half way through my dish and when we told this to our unattentive waiter he couldn't give us a great explanation and apology as to why the hair was in my meal.

And as all our meals came with chips which were old and not fresh we asked if we could have a fresh batch of chips and the other waiter said that the chips we received are fresh but after a bit more explaining to him and telling him the obvious that our chips don't even look fresh he finally agreed in providing us with fresh chips.After a 15 minute wait our fresh chips finally arrived.I haven't pictured the fresh chips however you could tell the difference between the new chips and the old chips and the new chips were much crispier.

Mint Turkish Delight

After we finished our meals we received complimentary after meal sweets which were mint flavored Turkish delights. Now none of my friends are fond of Turkish delights however i did have a bit to try even though i myself hate mint and Turkish delight. The Turkish delight did taste quite minty however the texture was very stodgy and it tasted like we were chewing on flavored dough.

Our Bill

In conclusion i was very disappointed with the Athenian Greek Restaurant and this was my second visit and the food was completely opposite to what i ate and tasted on my first visit. On my first visit the food was so tasty,full of flavour and the meats were very easy to cut and basically just melted in our mouths so i have no idea what happened in our second visit. Therefore i give this restaurant a 3/5 due to lack of flavour,dry old chips and hard to chew and swallow meat.

Address:
Greek Athenian Restaurant
11 Barrack Street
Sydney,NSW,2000
Tel:02 9262 2624