Kalimera Souvlaki Art, Oakleigh by Bureaucrat

Right now, the Lawyer and I are having a love affair with Greek food... this will be the first of a several posts on Greek food.  It all started about a week ago when we caught up with Big Fil for lunch in Oakleigh.  Having never visited Oakleigh, I didn't realise it's like a Little Greece in this part of suburbia.  The open-air mall is wonderful - full of convivial chatter in Greek, kiddies running around, yiayia doing the shopping in the many Continental shops, pappous strolling down to a cafe for a coffee, the aroma of char-grilled meats in the air and the outdoor dining is very reminiscent of Europe.

Big Fil steered us into Kalimera Souvlaki Art.  It was Sunday lunch and stepping into Kalimera felt like getting a big, warm embrace from the local Greek community.  It was noisy a bit chaotic and we loved it. Having nabbed a spare table (which was rather lucky since the place was packed), we placed our orders at the counter.

It was chaotic (in the nicest possible way) and squishy and noisy, so I was only able to take a photo of my own souvlaki.  This was a pork souv.  While I'm partial to a lamb souv, this was still pretty tasty. There was lots of tender pork - not too fatty or too lean. Nice ripe tomatoes, onion, tzatziki and chips accompanied the pork.  The pita bread was deliciously fluffy.  It was a fairly generously sized souv and it had lots of pork - I wasn't able to finish my souv (but the boys did!).

The Lawyer got the lamb souv (sorry no pic!).  This was a bit different as the lamb was minced and came in a sort of sausage form.  While it was nice, the Lawyer missed the more common form of meaty chunks of lamb in his souv.  I'm not sure what Big Fil ordered - it was either the pork souv or the char-grilled chicken souv.

And we got plenty of chips to share for the table.  These were dusted with dried oregano.  These were also pretty decent in serving size - there was enough leftover for both Big Fil and I to take a doggy bag home.  They were still pretty good even after being reheated at home.

Verdict

We really liked it.

Cheap eats.

Overall

Nice souvs on offer here.  The ingredients are fresh and fairly generous in serving size.  While these were pretty good, I have to say I still prefer the souvs at Kalamaki Greek Street Food in the city.

Kalimera has a really warm atmosphere - it's absolutely packed and Big Fil tells me that it's the same at night too.  The decor is nice but the big round tables make it rather difficult to park a pram (and there weren't any highchairs that I could see).  The service is friendly but there's no chance of lingering here - while it wasn't done in a rude manner, we were given the hint to vacate our table once we had finished.

Find it at

Kalimera Souvlaki Art
41 Chester Street
Oakleigh Vic 3166
Tel: 9939 3912