POSTED: Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010

Bellingham's Café Akroteri serves zesty Greek fare

BELLINGHAM -Café Akroteri, a downtown standby since the 1980s, doesn't appear to be resting on its laurels.

You'll find the same familiar dishes that fill the menus at other Greek restaurants in the area: spanakopita, saganaki, kalamaria, mousaka, souvlaki. But Akroteri's versions of these dishes show extra attention to preparation and seasoning, providing subtle, complex flavors that make a meal here special.

We started our meal with saganaki, $8.95, a flaming cheese dish that, for me, brings back memories of great Greek meals with good friends in Chicago's Greektown of decades gone by. (Wikipedia claims the practice of setting the cheese on fire may have originated in Chicago, not Greece.)

The pungent kasseri cheese is served browned in a small skillet. The server douses it with brandy, sets it aflame and douses the last few blue flickers with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. It's a hearty, rich dish, in a portion plenty big enough for two. It goes well with some of Akroteri's pita bread and a side of tzatziki, $2, which is a sour and spicy yogurt-based dip.

For our main courses we chose arni sto fourno, $16.95, and mousaka, $15.95, both of which are personal favorites and difficult to replicate at home unless you are an accomplished Greek cook.

Arni sto fourno is slow-roasted leg of lamb, studded with whole garlic cloves. At Mykonos, another worthy local Greek eatery, the slow-roasted lamb comes in a mustard sauce. Akroteri's version has a light tomato-based sauce enlivened with spices that help to make it special.

The mousaka, a ground meat and eggplant casserole dish with a creamy top, also had an intriguing, understated seasoning blend that pushed this Greek standard well above the run-of-the-mill.

Here and at other Greek restaurants, the roast potatoes are usually my choice among side dishes. Akroteri's potatoes are especially fine-creamy, with a bit of mild, lemony sauce.

Greek wines don't always get a lot of attention from wine cognoscenti, but I always choose them with a Greek meal-and I've never claimed to be among the cognoscenti anyhow. We sampled four Greek reds from those available by the glass on the Akroteri list. We enjoyed them all, but the Achaia Chateau Clauss had a definite edge over the others and I plan to stick to that one on my next visit.

The meal ended on a bit of a down note when our server informed us that every last bit of baklava was on its way to a big catering customer. Having to end a Greek meal without this honey-nut filo delight made me feel extremely sorry for myself for several minutes.

Bottom line: With its pleasant, bright, Greek-themed interior, dependable menu and ample portions, Café Akroteri is a good choice for a festive meal downtown. And a couple can eat well here for $20 or $30 less than what they might spend at a number of other downtown venues.

CAFÉ AKROTERI

Address: 1219 Cornwall Ave.

Phone: 676-5554

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

Dinner entrée prices: $15-$20