It’s always rather nice to be invited to a tasting for the start of a new venture. The folks, Steve and Panos, behind The Steamie, invited us to sample some dishes from the new menu for their new place, a police box on Rose Street, which will showcase Greek street food.

Lovely pitta

MJ has a much better awareness of this particular food culture than me, as one of our dear friends has roots in that culture, and she has been lucky enough to sample the cuisine at first hand.

The selection of food with which we were presented, which encompassed the majority of the Greek dishes they serve in the pub, was both overwhelming and completely delightful.

Tzatziki

Their street food operation will focus on a much smaller subset, with souvlaki and salad at the forefront of their offerings. Of the dishes we sampled, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that their new venture will do very nicely.

The pitta in the starter was high on light crispness, but it was the whitebait that really hit the spot with me. It’s a dish that’s often either badly mangled or overlooked, but this treatment, with crispy batter keeping the focus on the bite-sized seafood morsels, proved a winner.

Whitebait

The deep-fried feta and the calamari were both very good, too.

The souvlaki, which in many ways was the focus of the evening’s entertainment, was another satisfying dish. The pitta, from a specialist bakery in London, provided a excellent wrapper for cubes of pork, tzatziki, salad, and chips, with each hearty mouthful packed with flavour. I can see this proving a really popular option with city centre diners on the go, when their police box opens.

The evening was a really rewarding insight in to Greek food culture, as well as providing a good glimpse of the commitment and passion required to turn your culinary dreams into a reality.

Souvlaki

The food on offer at The Steamie was really very good. It was so much better value than what’s on offer at My Big Fat Greek Kitchen. There’s every reason to think that well prepared, high value food, like they are offering, can find a good niche with their new venture.

I look forward to sampling it, when they open on Rose Street, in the near future. I hope they take on board my suggestion of offering some traditional Greek soups, too, as that would be excellent soupy news.

Scores
Blythe scores The Steamie
4/5 for food
4/5 for presentation
3/5 for setting
4/5 for service
giving an overall 15/20

Today’s questers were: Miriam, Kate, Steve, Panos, Blythe

We ate: an array of starters, including pitta, whitebait, calamari, salad, deep fried feta, tzatziki; an array of main courses, including lamb fricasse, moussaka, souvlaki

We drank: wine, lager, water

We wore: MJ’s awesome pony dress (complete with bowtie) was the star of the show

Total bill: footed by Steve and Panos