Ramies Greek Restaurant

Surprise surprise, my brother wanted to treat us spontaneously to a dinner. He had been here previously, and wanted us to give it a try. Ramies Greek Restaurant, near metrotown.
The menu appeared pretty standard for a Greek restaurant, although they did have a section of bbq's that you could order. It personally sounded a little strange to me, and I really did want to try some just to see how they came out, but opted for the Combo Platter - Chicken souvlakia, prawns, scallops, keftedes, dolmathes, calamari, served with greek salad, rice pilaf, roast potatoes, tzatziki and pita. ($43.95). Variety and quantity, yum. And hopefully quality as well.

The pita came first. Served fresh, the pita looked quite pretty. Unfortunately, I prefer my pita's more crisp, and while this pita had a lightly crisped topped, the inner was extremely fluffy. I give them credit for getting that kind of texture, and I'm sure some would love this type of texture, but just not for me. I would have also really liked for the tzatziki sauce to come along with the pita (because I enjoy using it as a dip with the pita), but no harm done at all.

Greek salad was next. A plentiful amount of feta cheese, nice fresh pieces of cucumber, tomatoes and green onions, olives, not overwhelmed by olive oil. Simple, refreshing, very nice.

Aand, the tzatziki, sauce, which was definitely not devoid of flavour. Tzatziki has got to be one of my favourite types of dips.

Not too soon after, the main aspect of our Combo Platter arrived, and yes, this was a big plate!
I was very impressed by the platter. I rarely opt for chicken when visiting Greek restaurants, just because the preparation usually ends up causing the chicken to be dry. However, the souvlakia was tender, albeit not the most flavourful. Not bad, not bad at all.
Not seen in this pictures (and my apologies that I took it so poorly), are the keftedes' (greek meatballs) on the other side of the plate. Which is too bad because I really enjoyed them. Essentially a mini beef patty, they had a nice crust developed on the outside of the meat, and very moist within.
The calamari was also done very well, with a thin crispy batter encasing fresh wonderfully done squid. No rubbery texture detected in the slightest.

I was very surprised by the scallop+prawn combination. Don't they look cute? While I felt that the shrimp tasted a tad overdone, I still enjoyed it.

Finally, the dolmathes, which were filled with ground beef and rice. Subtle in flavour, and enjoyable to eat.

The platter is quite a large serving, and they choose to serve the carbs on the side. Unfortunately, all of the above were rather lacking in flavour. Really too bad, but at least I didn't detect any mushier textures.

We paid an extra $1 for more tzatziki, there just wasn't enough for the amount we use. Possibly average pricing, bordering on a little bit more than average, but service was polite and we were well attended for, despite the fact that there were two other large parties in the restaurant. Solid food and clean ambiance, I like this place.