Today we went to an authentic Greek restaurant with delicious traditional food dating back centuries.
Hello, again. My dad and I, and sometimes my mom comes along too, have been going out on the town to find some of the best not so well known cheap eats, mostly family-owned, restaurants that we can find. We go out almost every day, finding some new little place, or big place, to tell you about and review the food and prices.
So, before anything I want to say sorry for not posting very lately. My school’s quite hard, and to be honest I’m very stressed a lot of the time, so I haven’t gotten around to writing an article recently. But here I am, with another authentic and really delicious restaurant to tell you about! We’ve actually known about this place for years, but never have gotten around to trying it. Well, today we finally did get to it, and boy are we happy we did! The place is called Opa Greek Bistro, and is located on Francia 199 in Versalles, and the latitude longitude location is 20.637157769033024, -105.2273309007901. But, don’t be confused by the restaurant next door, which also happens to be a Greek restaurant painted blue and white.
Opa, like I said, is Greek, but it really is authentic. All the recipes are old Greek recipes, all the food is fresh, and some of the ingredients, including the pita, are homemade and fresh. In me and my dad’s opinion, they have the best Greek food, not just in PV, but the best we’ve ever tasted, except for one little place in Northern California, which is run by an old Greek man who’s been making food and gyros for around 60 years.
I actually got an Opa salad, but I was even surprised at myself. I’m personally not a huge salad fan, but I read what was in it, and it sounded really good, so I went for it! The base of the salad is baby spinach, which has a fresh, crisp, and slightly sweet flavor. Most of the time you’re given giant pieces of spinach that you don’t know what to do with, but the spinach was perfectly bite size. Apart from that the salad had balls of goat cheese covered in black sesame seeds, sliced strawberries, toasted and caramelized walnuts, homemade croutons, and a mustard-balsamic salad dressing, that of course came on the side. The balls of cheese were actually really good, and you could tell that the cheese was really good quality, and it was much sharper than other goat cheeses I’ve tasted. And, because of that sharpness that sweet strawberries paired perfectly with it. The nuts and sesame seeds added some nice smokiness, and that along with the croutons added a nice crunch. So, this salad was made of freshness, crispness, bitterness, sweetness, and a little crunchiness. Basically, it was a perfect salad!
My dad got a lamb and beef gyro, and again, it was the best one he’s ever tasted aside from the guy’s from California. Most places, especially here in Mexico, will buy pre-made meat on a trompo, but they actually make their meat mixture there, and that gives the meat a better flavor than if it was store-bought. Now, the tzatziki sauce on these gyros are literally perfect. It is super creamy and rich without being heavy, and it has the perfect amount of cucumber and garlic. So, everything blends beautifully together into a sauce that goes perfectly on the super good meat and warm, homemade pita with a very good yeast or bread-ish flavor. Many people think that tacos came from Mexico, but gyros were actually the first taco. Slowly people started catching on to it, and lots of people gave it their own twist. Now, what we think of a taco is a Mexican dish, when in reality the true, original taco is the gyro, which has existed for centuries!!
Opa is kind of a small place, so with the great flavors and nice staff it’s sure to fill up during the day, so you may or may not get a table, I’m genuinely not sure. And, I don’t mean it’s tiny, it’s just not a full-sized restaurant, though either way, it’s so pretty! There are paintings on either walls with super realistic landscapes of typical Greek buildings, one of them looking down a brightly-lit alleyway and the other looking through a window out to a dome. And the “window” even has some parts where it’s all wood, and some of the blue paint on the “window” is chipped off, though it’s hard to explain since it was painted to look like paint chipped off of wood, not the actual wall.
Opa's phone number: 322 293 4500
If you enjoyed this article, and would like to recommend a place that you know about, then please let me know. Or, if you are an owner yourself of a place that you would like to see written about, contact me.
And to see the rest of my food reviews go to the Dining Out section here in Vallarta Bay Times.