Nostos - Great Greek Gastronomic Goodies - Tysons Corner

I received a tip from a friend that there is a Greek restaurant in Tysons Corner worth checking out.  So I grabbed a foodie friend and headed to TC.  I really like Greek food but beyond Zaytina, I haven't found any Greek food in this area that I liked much (Note, I don't consider Komi really Greek).  So I went into this dinner with high hopes.

The location is set in the heart of Tysons Corner on route 7 near the mall.  The interior of the restaurant is modern with whites and mints dominating the color palette.  We arrived at 6 pm and it was already bustling and filled to capacity before our food arrived.  Hint, make a reservation or it's unlikely that you will get seated.  Word is out.  Nostos is good.

The menu is about 80% small plates which is my favorite style of dining.  Lots of tastes and flavors instead of one huge entree I can't finish.  But before we ordered food, we selected a couple of glasses of Greek wine, which were both excellent. The waiter was kind enough to provide me with complimentary tastes of two wines so I could made an educated decision.  Fantastic service!  After careful consideration and consultation with the waiter, who was a doppleganger for Peter Gallagher from tv's "Arrow", we made our selections.

An accidental sexual presentation?... I don't think so.

First, the bread came.  Not Pita.... bread.  Can you possibly forgive Nostos for placing bread on the table instead of the traditional starch of Greece?  The answer is "YES".  The bread was excellent and served with one of the best small dishes of hummus I've ever had to to along with it.  We decided to start with their Greek version of baba ganoush, Melitzanosalata.  I'm not a huge fan of eggplant (has the word egg in it, after all) but this was actually very good.  We quickly got into a second loaf of bread and a second round of the complimentary hummus while scooping this dip up.

Stuffed Grape leaves

I sometimes get a craving for stuffed grape leaves.  If they are done well, they can be extremely tasty.  Nostos does a great job with theirs and drenched two stuffed grape leaves with a lemon-egg sauce.  Admittedly, they aren't the most beautiful things to look at, but they were excellent.

Something on the menu jumped out at us and was also recommended by the waiter so we tried it.  The Saganaki which is a thick slice of kefalograviera cheese flambeed tableside with oil and lemon.  The result?  A salty, crusty piece of warm cheese to spread on the bread.  This small plate is around ten dollars and is a must-have, not just because of the taste but the oooo and ahhh factor as the entire restaurant turns to see the explosion of flame at your table.

Peter Gallagher produces cheese flambe'!

The next two dishes came out together.  First, fried zucchini with a yogurt dill sauce.  The second, pieces of fried cod with a lemony garlic bread puree.  The zucchini tasted like it should.  Lightly fried and a yummy dip.  You won't blow your mindhole eating it but if you like fried veggies, you can't go wrong.

It is almost criminal to go to a Greek restaurant without eating fresh fish.  But since we loaded up on numerous other goodies, there was no room left for a full fish entree.  So we opted for the fish bites.  The fish was fresh, it was fried and it had a good sauce to dip it in.  Let's move on.

Grilled Octopus.  A must-order!

The next two dishes were a sauteed shrimp, feta and tomato dish.  I've actually cooked something similar to this before.  Very tasty.  But what I really want to talk about is the Grilled Octopus.  For whatever reason, my expectations were very low, in spite of the waiter giving it his highest recommendation.  The octopus came out as a single, long tentacle obviously grilled over and open flame.  It was lightly seasoned and incredibly fresh and served over some sort of pureed veggie.  The texture was unlike anything I had eaten before.  Normally, cooked or raw, octopus is fairly gamey.  However, the meat of this octopus was more like eating succulent cooked lobster.  It cut easily under the knife and was delicious.  This dish is a must-have if you dine at Nostos. 

For dessert, I obviously went for their creme caramel.  It was just "ok" but keep in mind when I say that, that it is increasingly difficult to impress me with a flan or creme caramel.  The interior of this dessert was a little bubbly and the caramel sauce was a little too sweet for my taste. 

Had to dive into this before I got the photo

I stopped the manager to comment on his serving skills and overall swagger (if you see him, you'll see what I mean by witnessing how he carries plates and glasses of wine around) and he brought us some greek dessert wine to enjoy after our meal.  I love places that go above and beyond like that.

Overall, Nostos is a restaurant I will be frequenting for any special occasion I might have.  The service was top-notch and my server was a true professional, offering excellent recommendations and clearly loving his job.  The prices were reasonable for the quality of food and service, but for two people that are drinking wine, it is likely going to run you around 100 dollars for the meal.  That is always money well spent for a meal that you can remember one day.





Rating - 5 out of 5 stars.

Zaytinya - DC

Jose Andres is one of my favorite chef's and someone who introduced me to the world of small-plate eating.  For my entire life previous to dining at his restaurants, I'd been forced to eat massive sized entrees of pasta, steak or burritos with that being my entire meal.  I always craved multiple tastes, textures and sensations but that isn't how Americans dine.  And then I ate at Jaleo and realized, food doesn't have to be limited to picking one giant entree!

Zaytinya is Jose Andres's Mediterranean tapas restaurant.  It is widely recognized as one of the best tapas restaurants in Washington DC.  It has a lively bar scene and it's hip interior, complete with 30 foot high windows, men in vests and fake eyewear can turn even the biggest "bro" into a hipster for the night.

My group of six sat down a little tipsy on tequila and began firing off suggestions to one another and our waitress.  Within minutes, huge football sized pieces of hollow bread appeared along with oil for dipping. The hummus came out first and we dipped our steaming pieces of bread in with great pleasure.  Great hummus is test number one for any restaurant claiming to have Lebanese influences.  It was very good and two plates of it disappeared in minutes.  Their hummus style is a very smooth blend versus a slightly grainy texture which some hummus lovers prefer.  Just a note so you have an idea of how they prepare it.

I've always said you can fry just about anything and it tastes great.  But that statement would not do justice to Zaytinya's fried appetizers.  First, the fried eggplant came out.  A testament to my fried food theory, I am not a fan of eggplant, however, it was beyond tasty.  After selling the fried Brussel Sprouts to my friends all night leading up to the dinner, I was impatiently waiting for the double-order I had placed to come out.  When it did, I made my mom proud by loading my plate up with about 15 sprouts.  Each sprout was lightly seasoned with coriander and barberries, fried in some miraculous way and then drizzled with a yogurt sauce that perfectly complemented each bite by adding cream to crunch.  The cooked texture is like a crispy-edged, juicy, flavorful artichoke.  The dish didn't let my friends down as we finished both plates.  For greek food lovers, don't miss the spanakopita which they make very much like a ho-ho.  Puff pastry shell filled with spinach and cheese.

The meat courses did not let us down, either.  The first to come out was the beef tartar.  Raw beef scares a lot of people but 5 of us lathered the tartar onto the supplied crackers.  Tartar is so dependent on seasoning and making sure the meat has a little texture left to it.  American diners don't like meat mush!  Zaytina's tartar gets it right.  One guy in our group has a very.... conservative palate.  Which means, he only wanted Calamari so we ordered two rounds.  Calamari is a very subjective dish and people prefer it all different ways.  I like it lightly fried and lightly seasoned and SUPER fresh.  I'm not a fan of chain restaurant methods of using frozen squid/octopus and heavily frying/seasoning the morsels and requiring the diner to rely on the supplied sauce to help it go down easily.  Zaytinya's squid is light and I could only detect salt and pepper in their seasoning.  It was so good that it did not require any dipping into the garlic-white sauce which led to a conversation about men having an aversion to white sauces, in general.  This was just one of the many hilarious, inappropriate conversations that booze and great food seemed to encourage.

Let's not forget one of the best dishes.  Be sure to get the HÜNKÃR BEĞENDI which is a braised Lamb Shank with puree'd eggplant.  This appeared to be Zaytinya's interpretation of Roast Beef and Mashed Potatoes using Mediterranean ingredients.  A second round was definitely required after the first round vanished before everyone could try it.

Coffee and dessert were no let down as one friend declared that their regular coffee was the best he had ever had.  I shared the soft-center chocolate lava cake with a couple of the group members but the highlight wasn't the cake.  It was the fresh whipped cream that Jose Andres has mastered making that accompanied the cake.  It is also accompanies their famous Flan at Jaleo that is my all-time favorite dessert.

Unfortunately, there are no photos to go along with this post.  Taking time to snap photos would have resulted in missing entire dishes as we gorged ourselves on tapas.  In other unfortunate news, my full belly and frantic ordering resulted in missing the opportunity to try the goat , the crispy veal sweetbreads and crabcakes.  But I'll be ready to go back very soon!

4.5 out of 5 Stars