Louis Pappas creates a market-cafe combo and puts some twists in his traditional fare.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published April 3, 2003
Whether you join the hordes of snowbirds at the old Pappas on the sponge docks or stand in line at the New Generation places that Louis Pappas is setting up in strips, it's clear that we have a big, fat appetite for Greek food.
From Greek salads and gyros to baklava, Greek food is firmly ensconced in the Tampa Bay area pantheon. And our Greek favorites deserve to be up there with grouper sandwiches, boliche, steaks and Bloomin' Onions.
Snicker if you will at that potato salad in the Tarpon Springs Greek salad, but the first Louis Pappas put a scoop in there almost a century ago. Myth has it that he was bulking up a traditional salad for either Pershing's troops or early divers, so consider it a salute to the WWI doughboys or hard-working immigrants.
The accents made it our first main-dish salad: tart feta cheese, pepperoncini and anchovy for me; olives and beets for the rest of you.
This ancient menu staple is beginning to change. But don't fear that anything nouvelle or frilly is on the way.
The changes emanate from the sale of the Colossus of the Anclote that has been a fixture on tourist maps and the Tarpon Springs waterfront for decades. The new owners of Pappas Riverside will introduce a menu this month to emphasize seafood and more traditional Greek flavor.
The former owner of the landmark, Louis L. Pappas, has achieved a bigger change using Greek food and our love for it as the basis of "great fast food" at Louis Pappas Market Cafes.
Gyros have always made great street food, and salads and rotisserie chicken are handy for carry-out. At his Market Cafes, however, Pappas has moved such favorites uptown. You get a miniboutique selling olive oils and cookbooks, unpitted black olives on the table, Greek beer and wine, and outdoor tables in the same bracket as Starbucks. And the family that doesn't want to cook can move several steps uptown from pizza and get a dinner of take-home lamb chops or grilled grouper.
The menu invents a Greek quesadilla, concocts a pita pizza and fusses with bruschetta, and Marsala and alfredo sauces to be "Mediterranean," but the best of it is just Greek.
Moussaka tastes like always, like the first time you realized that if you added tomato sauce and ground beef, you could love eggplant. A light touch with the bechamel makes it warm and hearty but not too rich.
Little spanakopitas in crisp phyllo crust remain charming treats. So are stuffed grape leaves (although the egg lemon sauce is on the tart side). As an entree, the spanakopita gets a different treatment; the spinach and feta mix is served cold with slices of grilled chicken breast and marinara sauce. I wish the chicken had been hot off the grill. It was as cold as the spinach.
For a heftier entree, try the lamb shank. It's been rediscovered as a comfort food with takeout potential, but few entrepreneurs have figured out how to time the cooking right. Pappas comes close, although I still like mine simmered another eon.
On salads, anything larger than a baby Greek should be reserved for parties of four or more. I'd like it better with more mixed greens, stronger olive oil and more anchovies, rather than a towering stack of lettuce crowned with beets and shrimp. But it's monstrously popular.
The best bet among the salads is one with marinated octopus. Where else can you get the real thing, not teeny little calamari? This are no carbs, lots of protein and bright flavors.
The best snacks are pita chips (toasted with oil), served with either cucumber-yogurt tzatziki or a smooth baba ghanouj. The hummus is too dry and crunchy, and the skordalia, perhaps the original potato salad, needs more olive oil and vinegar.
For dessert, well, if you've ever been to the Tarpon Springs bakeries, you know the full array of honeyed sweets that is available. You may regret having them so handy.
All this comes with modern counter service, a la Panera: more choices than most customers or staff can initially manage with ease, and a certain amount of waiting and hollering. But with crowds lined up at three cafes, and a fourth in the works, Pappas has a brand new takeout that has cleverly modernized Greek for another century.
A recent visit to Pappas Riverside in Tarpon Springs under the new management showed that it is moving smoothly, too, although the menu had not begun to change. I thought I tasted more cinnamon in the moussaka and mint in the dolmades. I hope that's a sign that the new owners will give us a taste of the old ways, too.
We just can't get enough Greek.
Louis Pappas Market Cafe
14913 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa
(813) 910-9000
3409 Bay to Bay Blvd., Tampa
(813) 839-0000
7877 Gunn Highway, Tampa
813-926-5202
2560 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater
(opening summer)
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.
Details: Most credit cards; beer, wine served; no reservations; no smoking.
