Royal Oak pizza has been around for a long time and I remember my mom ordering take out pizza and lasagnas from there when I was a kid. From what I remember the pizza wasn’t the greatest and I preferred Pizza Hut. This was a long time ago, so I’m willing to give their pizza another shot. This time I went for my mom’s and brother’s birthday dinner. The place was pretty busy on the Friday we went. It was very loud in there and it was hard to hear someone just directly across the table.

To start we just ordered some Greek style ribs as well as a side of fries for my nephew. The baby back ribs came out really quickly. They weren’t BBQ’d, but boiled or braised in liquid. They were a kind of unappealing grey color, probably just boiled. Flavored with Greek herbs and lemon. Its something that you can easily make at home. Parts of it was fall off the bone tender but some wasn’t.

For our mains, me and my brother ordered the roast lamb, my dad ordered the kalamari dinner, my mom ordered a Greek mixed grill platter that was on special, and Tre ordered the lamb souvlaki. The roast lamb was pretty pricey at 18.95 but it was delicious. The meat was very tender and had a good amount of fat that melts in your mouth. Excellent flavours in the crust, and so moist and juicy inside. Tasted great. It came with Greek salad, which didn’t have much dressing, rice, potato, tzatziki sauce, and some pita bread.

The kalamari wasn’t that good because the squid was cut way too big. I prefer smaller pieces of kalamari so it’s easier to eat. It was lightly breaded, but not very crispy. The mixed platter came with the same ribs we ordered as an appy, a lamb chop, and some souvlaki. Good mix of meats if you wanted to try a variety of things.

The service was OK. Some of the servers were friendlier than others. There isn’t that much parking in the front, but you can also park in the back. I’d come back more often, but wish the roast lamb would be a few dollars cheaper.

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Royal Oak
15336 Fraser Highway
Surrey, BC

(604) 581-3330

www.royaloakpizza.com

My friend told me about Aaron’s pizza probably almost a year ago, but I’ve rarely been in the area. It’s just off the main street of downtown Cloverdale. I had tried to go here a few weeks before but they were closed off for a private function. My hope for this place would be kind of like a closer replacement for Anton’s where I can get decent tasting pasta, and tons of it when I have a craving. On Tuesdays to Thursdays they have 9 dollar pastas. Aside from pasta they also serve greek food and of course pizzas.

I started with the French onion soup which was pretty tasty. It was a very rich dark broth filled with tender strips of onions and topped with a slice of bread loaded with tons of cheese. A bit too salty but really tasty. It was good for being under $4. My friends ordered the seafood chowder and they loved it. A creamy chowder with mixed seafood, potatoes and carrots. They seriously enjoyed it a lot, and would go back there just for the seafood chowder. Really comforting and also really cheap.

For my main I had to order a pasta – the penne with chicken and rosemary tomato cream sauce. The chicken was tender and the sauce had whole cloves of roasted garlic and a very strong basil flavour. The pasta was a bit undercooked in my opinion. Overall it was just pretty average, but that’s maybe because I prefer rich cream sauces. It was a decent size but not huge. I was able to finish my plate fairly easily. My friend said that a lot of his friends can’t finish. I’m not sure about that.

My friends ordered the roast lamb and a bacon wrapped sirloin. I tried a bit of the roast lamb and it was flavorful and fatty it was serves with the usual rice, potatoes, tzatziki, and Greek salad for $15. The bacon wrapped sirloin came with two small pieces of steak and a huge side of spaghetti. It honestly looked like spaghetti with a side of steak. He said it was good though, but yah, way too much spaghetti. We were also given a basket with pita and garlic bread.

I’d come back. Although my pasta was just decent, it was also only $9 that day, and there are a few other pastas I want to try on the menu. I still also need to try the pizza, it is in the name after all.

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Aaron’s Pizza
17665 57 Ave
Surrey, BC

(604) 576-8151

www.aaronsrestaurant.ca

I’ve heard good things about the Coquitlam location of My Greek Taverna from my family and also from some friends. I haven’t made my way out to Coquitlam for the past while, but luckily there’s another location close by in Surrey’s Newton area. I was craving some roast lamb, so I went. I ordered a spanikopita, and a roast lamb ($16.95), while my friend ordered some calamari ($9.99) and a special of a 8 oz. NY steak and a lasagna ($16.95) – a really good deal. My spanikopita was also  a special and was only $4.99.

My spanikopita was pretty large. It had a nice spinach and feta filling inside a nice crisp, flakey, and buttery phyllo shell. The spinach was cooked all the way through and was easy to cut and bite through. My friend said that the calamari was your standard Greek calamari, nothing special about it. I actually had a full piece this time, and no allergies again. It was OK. The breading was light, but the kalamari was a cit chewy and rubbery. Seems like it’s always like that? I’m new to seafood, so I don’t know.

Now onto my reason for going, and I’m really glad I went. It’s the best lamb I’ve had in a long time. Perfectly cooked, tender, fall off the bone roast lamb, and plenty of fat for extra flavour. It just melted in your mouth. What more could you want? Sometimes roast lamb is easy to shred, but the meat still isn’t that tender as you bite through the meat. This time, it was very tender. I loved the flavour which came mostly from the meat, and a bit of rosemary and lemon flavour. It came with a roasted potato, rice and Greek salad. The Greek salad was very mild, and the most disappointing part of the dish. I really like my chunks of feta cheese in my salad, and they just had thin shavings.

My friend said the steak was better than he expected, and definitely worth the $16.95. It was $5 cheaper that day. We were stuffed and the portions were good, though I’ve seen roast lamb for cheaper at other Greek restaurants, but none as good as this. We were stuffed at the end of our meal. The service was friendly too. I’m glad there’s a place close by to get my fix for roast lamb, but I also want to try the Coquitlam location.

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My Greek Taverna
6450 120th Street
Surrey, BC

www.mygreektaverna.com

I was really craving Greek food last week, and I went to John’s Greek Taverna in the Surrey-Newton area. Actually on this day, I had already eaten dinner, and was no longer craving Greek food, but we went anyway. We searched through the Entertainment Book and decided on a local Greek place that wasn’t even in the Book.

We arrived at John’s Greek Taverna and it wasn’t very busy with just one other table was filled. The parking lot was a bit packed, because it seemed like every other spot was reserved for the RCMP because there’s a police station in the same complex.  We were quite amazed at the menu as it had a lot of non-Greek food there. They actually have teriyaki dishes on their menu.

I ordered the Roast Lamb ($15.99), because that was what I was really craving. Beipas ordered the Greek style chicken ($13.99) and our other friend ordered the Veal Louie ($15.99).

The Roast Lamb was pretty big and came with two pieces, but didn’t look like the roast lamb I’m used to. It wasn’t a thick piece of Lamb with bone in, it was much thinner and came with two pieces. It was also served with some rice, Greek salad, potato and some tzatziki sauce. The lamb was really bad. It was fairly stringy and chewy. There was some fatty bits in there, but it was just tough to chew. It didn’t taste that good either, something was missing. But, the worst thing about it was the texture and the chewiness of it, and it wasn’t because it was overcooked.  One of the worst roast lambs I’ve ever had. Sherman had the same experience over a year ago. The rice was good however, and so was the Greek salad, nice and fresh. The tzatziki was had a nice garlic flavour to it too, which helped with the dish. The potatoes were OK, but I wish it had been broiled for a bit and had a bit crispy on the top.

The Greek style chicken was a half rotisserie chicken. It didn’t really have much Greek flavouring in there, but it was cooked well. Not dry. Beipas says her potatoes seemed old.

The Veal Louie came with a creamy shrimp sauce and topped with melted mozzarella cheese. With cream and mozzarella topping, you just knew that it’s not good for you. Another bad thing was that for some reason the meat was very watery! My friend didn’t even finish half of the entree. It also came with a pretty standard green salad with house dressing which was decent.

They also gave us a basket of pita bread, and garlic bread. But we hardly touched it.

It seems like people usually get take out from this place more than eating in. Would I come back here again? Probably not. There are so many other Greek restaurants that I would rather go to first. Roast Lamb is the dish I crave when I want Greek food, and this one was really bad.

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John’s Greek Taverna
7244 King George Hwy
Surrey, BC

(604) 591-8471

I think I tried to go to Porto Fino Mediterranean restaurant a few months ago, but got wrote down the wrong address. I found it this time. Porto Fino actually has a couple other Express locations – probably take out only and a limited menu.

The area is pretty sketchy looking, around the Scott Rd and 96th Ave area in Surrey. The building looks very old from the outside. Once we got in though, it got better. We were quickly seated. Luckily they had a few TVs in there so that I could watch the Vancouver Canucks game.

The menu is filled with your standard Greek food, with some Italian food like pastas and pizzas. We ordered the Eggplant Parmesan for our appetizer. For our entrees, I ordered the Regular sized Lasagna Al Forno with meat sauce (you can choose plain tomato sauce) ($13.99), and Beipas ordered the light Lamb Souvlaki ($15.99). I also ordered a 1/4 L of red wine which was really good. I can’t remember what it was called though. It was pretty light and fruity.

The food took a long time to come, but our waitress apologized. Seemed like their was only one chef/cook in the back, but it also wasn’t too busy. I think there were about 5-6 tables filled. I think it took about 30 minutes for our appetizer to come out. The eggplant was covered with tomato sauce and mozarella and edam cheese. I guess it was really the sauce and cheese that made me really liked it. I could taste the eggplant but it was pretty soggy. I couldn’t tell if it was breaded and fried before being baked. Anyways we both liked it. I think there were about 4 slices of eggplant, and was served with really good garlic bread.

Our main courses came a few minutes later. My lasagna looked really big, I literallly said “whoa” when our waitress brought it. It was a really big dish. But it was actually because the plate was really shallow. But it was good this way because there was a lot of yummy cheesy topping – you can have some with each bite. It was a lot of food though. I think I was only able to finish half. I liked it quite a bit. It wasn’t spectacular but it was good (mostly because there was so much topping!). I noticed later on though that there was a huge whole bay leaf baked on top of my lasagna…

The Lamb Souvlaki was good too. The light came with a skewer of Lamb, rice pilaf, roast potatoes, Greek salad, and tzatziki. Beipas said it was good. I tasted a bit of the lamb and it was cooked a little bit more than I like it, but I’m not that big of a fan of souvlaki. But the overall flavour was good.

One thing that was kind of annoying was that our waitress’ response to everything we said was “For sure!”. Can I have some water? – “For sure!” Can I order this and that? – “For sure!” Can we just get the bill? – “For sure!” I swear she said “For sure!” to us at least 10 times… but she was nice. So did I like the restaurant? For sure!

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Porto Fino
9493 120 St.
Delta, BC

(604) 581-7555

http://portofinorestaurants.ca