The Greek by Anatoli: Happy hour in Yaletown
The Greek by Anatoli is a Greek restaurant with several locations in Yaletown, North Vancouver and Gastown. For this review, we visited their Yaletown location for happy hour from 2-5pm every day with 2 other friends as a table of 4. Note that different locations have different menus!
Interior
The interior of The Greek Yaletown location is quite cute. I like the string lights they have on the ceiling, which kind actually hides how ugly it is lol. It has the feeling of an outdoor patio while being fully indoors. Tables are a mixture of booth and chair seating and they can accommodate for large tables (8+).
Happy hour drinks
Rothakino ($8) and Helen’s sangria ($8)
I ordered the sangria and it was in a really large glass, actually so $8 is a really good deal for it. My other friends all ordered the rothakino, which is like a boozy iced tea with crown royal peach and lemon. The rothakino tasted stronger than the sangria, but it still had a nice taste to it (not too strong).
We also ordered some ouzo shots to try it out since none of us have had this before (it’s the clear shots in the back of the photo). It tasted strongly like licorice, so if you like licorice you probably will like this shot. But if you don’t like licorice, you will hate it. We had very polar opinions on this shot.
Happy hour food
We ordered everything to share between 4 people.
Gyro merida ($9)
We ordered 1 gyro merida, which has chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion and tzatziki served open face on a pita. This is a pretty hefty appetizer but it is a little difficult to share with other people because it can fall apart, so it’s more for one person to eat whole.
Chicken or true Greek pork souvlaki ($11)
We ordered a platter that had souvlaki, but we didn’t think it would be enough for 4 people so we ordered an additional souvlaki and chose “true pork” (well the other side didn’t say true chicken lol). There are 2 skewers served kalamaki style on a pita with tzatziki.
I thought this was a simple but yummy dish. The pork wasn’t dry at all and the tzatziki gave it a refreshing flavour. Easier to eat and easier to share than the gyro.
Mezze platter ($34)
When we were ordering, we knew we would choose the mezze platter because it has a little bit of everything on the happy hour menu so it’s the best deal imo. The platter includes homous, spanakopita, keftedes, calamari, dolmathes, and your choice of chicken or pork souvlaki. Since we chose “true pork” for the other souvlaki order, we chose chicken for the platter.
Starting from the top left, we have the spanakopita, which is similar to a pastry. It is stuffed with spinach, feta and herbs and wrapped and baked in filo. It has a nice crunchy texture, very thin, and the inside has a burst of flavour from the spinach and feta. If you order this al le carte from the happy hour menu, it is $7, but you probably get more.
Next to it is the calamari, a classic appetizer. I don’t have much to say about it because it tasted exactly how I would expect it to – crispy and went really well with the tzatziki sauce. Al le carte price from happy hour menu for the calamari is $10, but you probably get a larger portion.
The red corner is actually the keftedes. Keftedes are traditional pan-fried meatballs served in tomato sauce and topped with shredded saganaki cheese. These were pretty tasty too and taste different from Italian meatballs (these are smaller, more herby?).
Missing from the photo is the dolmathes, which they served to us on a separate smaller plate. These look really similar to the Chinese sticky rice to me because it is wrapped in this leaf. Inside, they use a mushroom blend, fresh herbs and rice and wrap it in grape vine leaves, simmered in veggie lemon broth. I actually didn’t really like this because I found it to be very sour!
You can find dolmathes on their regular dinner menu for $15 for 4 servings, but you cannot order it al le carte during happy hour.
The chicken souvlaki was basically the same as the pork souvlaki except there isn’t as much pita to pair it with (I like to eat just the pita with homous). I liked the chicken souvlaki more though, it also wasn’t dry like the pork and was juicy.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐
We had a really fun happy hour at The Greek by Anatoli in Yaletown. As a table of 4, we felt well-attended to and the servers were always able to answer our questions regarding the menu.
Food-wise, I highly recommend the mezze platter. At $34 you get 6 different appetizers and there is enough rice and food to fill 2 people up for sure. Out of the individual items, I can live without the keftedes and the dolmathes, but it was nice for me to try it because otherwise I wouldn’t have ordered it if it wasn’t in the platter.
Drinks and all the food items are a reasonable price, especially for Yaletown. A fun spot to bring your family or friends!
Sincerely, Loewe