Thursday Night Grub - Olive Vine

Thursday night, MB and I headed to the Olive Vine Cafe on 7th Ave between Lincoln and St. John Place with a couple of couples - Chuck & Lilla and Kwami & Abbie. Olive Vine has a few other locations in the area, one on 7th Ave at 15th St. and another on Court St. between Degraw and Sackett, but we'd never eaten at any of the locations before.

The ladies

The Mediterranean menu is simple, straight forward, and very afforable; none of the entrees are more than $12. Plus, it's BYOB, which makes for a very cheap evening. That said, "You get what you pay for," as Chuck likes to say. Our waitress, who was very pleasant, brought us paper cups for our wine. When we asked for real wine glasses, like the ones we saw being used at other tables, she tried to tell us that they didn't have any. Eventually, as other patrons left the restaurant, she managed to round up 6 glasses but it was definitely strange they didn't have enough place settings for the entire restaurant.

To start, we split two orders of zatter bread and some pita bread; we tried to order some spinach pie but they were out. It was entirely too much food to start the meal but we were all starving by the time we were able to put our order in. As for wine, MB and I brought a Gewurztraminer and the other couples brought a pair of cabernets, one from Cali and the other from Australia.

For entrees, MB had a Olive Vine pizza and I had a an ouzi. The 10" pie, one of nine on the menu, features zucchini, eggplant, garlic, onions, cilantro, mozzarella and a homemade, Med-style sauce. The ouzi is a huge phylo-crust pie filled with chicken, rice, raisins and spices. Mine was a little dry but the yogurt sauce accompanying the dish did the trick.

Candle-lit Olive Vine Pizza

Chicken Ouzi