Athens West brings a taste of Greek delight

DINING OUT

When you drop by Athens West in the Seacliff Village Center at

Yorktown Avenue and Goldenwest Street, I hope you have Keri (short

for Kyriaki, Greek for Sunday) as your server. When she explains the

Greek dishes you feel as if you’re sitting in a someone’s

grandmother’s kitchen learning to cook the Greek dishes in the tiny

village of southwestern Greece where owner Peter Lafkas comes from.

Peter, a friend of Keri’s family, is the sole owner of Athens

West. I don’t know what the word would be in Greek to describe the

food, but in English its flavorful or spicy or just plain good.

Athens West is in an area of Seacliff Village with several other

cafes with which it shares 20 or 30 outside tables. Its modernistic

interior is an order-at-the-counter curvy place with two booths, an

eight seat banquette, two tall tables and a counter with stools --

all casual and breezy.

A great introduction to Greek food is the Appetizer Combo ($5.99),

which includes gyro -- slices of lamb and the beef cut off a vertical

rotisserie, spanakopita, light flaky dough triangles stuffed with

fresh steamed spinach and feta cheese, some chewy calamari and a tiny

cup of tzatziki sauce, a creamy garlic flavored yogurt dip with dill

and cucumber bits.

If you’re still getting acquainted, just pick and chose among the

side orders. The traditional avgolemono soup (cup $1.50, bowl $3.45)

is thick with a lemon pungent flavor and bits of chicken and pasta --

excellent with the warm and fluffy pita bread triangles when you’re

sitting outside. Add three falafel meat of garbanzo bean patties

fried lightly fried with humus ($2) to make a light lunch.

There are lunch specials (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.), small and large

vegetable kabob, and pita plates or just soup, salad and pita

($4.59). Soup like all the dishes is homemade, thicker and more

flavorful than most.

Plates can include everything from marinated skewers of chicken or

steak, calamari, seafood kabobs of shrimp and scallops. But for a

really filling lunch I had Lamb Chops ($9.99), three bone-in broiled

over an open flame until really crisp and blackened. Although the

chops were thin sliced, they were well seasoned -- just pick one up

and indulge.

The plate has a very high pile of creamy oblong orzo pasta (the

Greek version of rice) which is cooked at Athens West in milk and

butter, and a serving of Greek salad with mixed greens, roma

tomatoes, sliced red onions, feta cheese and Kalamata olives with

triangles of pita bread and tzatziki sauce. It’s very generous with a

fresh “right on” flavor that lingers in the mouth.

And who can leave a Greek restaurant without baklava ($1.25) made

with paper thin layers of fillo dough, crushed nuts and honey. It’s

the traditional ending of a luscious Greek meal.

Athens West is a hospitable place where you may feel, as Keri did,

that you are in the kitchen of a small village in southwestern Greece

with owner Peter Lafkas learning the recipes from his mother Zwaki

Lafkas.

* MARY FURR is the Independent restaurant critic. If you have

comments or suggestions, call (562) 493-5062 or e-mail

hbindy@latimes.com.