I'll never forget the last scene from the 1964 film, Zorba the Greek, where Alan Bates asks Anthony Quinn as Zorba if he will teach him to dance.
"Did you say ... dance", he rasps, happy at last that his repressed friend has finally embraced the Greek esprit de corps. Then, the two men lock arms, as the famous Zorba theme from Mikis Theodorakis twangs in the background, and the final credits roll.
You'll see a re-enactment of that scene depicted in a mural at Opa, a recently opened Greek restaurant on the west side. Opa is housed in the space that formerly had a Spanish, and later Mexican, restaurant, but this concept is the best fit yet. It doesn't hurt that this is also the best Greek restaurant ever to open in Vegas.
I'm not being hyperbolic. One look at this menu, full of home-style taverna dishes such as stifado, aromatically spiced Greek beef stew, patsa, tripe soup and youvetsi, lamb in a clay pot with orzo pasta and spicy tomato sauce, and you know there are serious pros in the kitchen.
Until Opa, every Greek restaurant in town relied on a menu virtually cloned from the competition. Here, you've got the entire gamut of Hellenic cooking, with a wealth of the appetizers called mezedakia (that constitute the heart of any Greek meal worth its salt) and a host of interesting village dishes previously not available in our city.
It's extremely blue and white here, thanks to blue tablecloths over white undercloths, blue vests on the waiters, (all of whom are bilingual in English and Greek), and another mural painted with the white domed roof and blue sky of a Santorini village. The dining room is large and comfortable. In the rear is a raised stage, and on weekends, there is a band with a real live bouzouki player doing Greek music.
Opa is actually a Greek language expletive, sort of like "Hey," but with more zest for life. It's traditional to shout it when dancing in a circle or lighting saganaki, a breaded sheep's-milk cheese, on fire. Come during the evening and you'll hear it shouted often.
Soups are a nice way to begin, whether with avgolemono, the well-traveled lemon-rice soup thickened with a beaten egg, or one of the daily specials such as fasolada, a flavorful bean soup. Horiatiki, or Greek village salad, is traditional in the sense that it is without lettuce, a vegetable that doesn't really grow in Greece. Its components are tomato and crumbled feta, cucumber, Kalamata olives, sliced onion and a pungent vinaigrette.
The mezedakia are sensational. From the cold side, there is a smoky eggplant dip called melitzanosalata, a cod roe and olive oil spread called taramosalata, and gigantes, big lima beans baked in tomato sauce. Just a few of the warm dishes include marides, fried smelts; keftedakia, juicy meatballs with crunchy outsides permeated with the flavors of mint and garlic; and the aforementioned saganaki, which is, in fact, quite irresistible.
From the daily menu's main body come dishes like kota: a half-chicken baked until crisp, bathed in a garlic, lemon, oregano and olive oil wash. I had the chicken with green beans in an aromatic tomato sauce redolent of cinnamon and allspice, fluffy rice pilaf, and a wedge of skinless, oven-baked potato.
The combination plate combines several dishes: eggplant and ground-meat casserole moussaka; sliced leg of lamb; dolmades, vine leaves stuffed with a meat-rice filling; and pastitsio, a filling macaroni and meat casserole wearing a hat of baked Bechamel sauce. If you fancy roast lamb, come Friday, Saturday or Sunday, when it is served as a special. Stifado with beef, served Friday and Saturday, is fork-tender, and mystically spiced.
I've long held that a Greek seafood restaurant, like Milos in New York and Montreal, would go great guns on the Strip, but so far, no one has dared to try it. Seafood is good at Opa, though limited. There is, for example, sinagrida, or red snapper, done Greek style with the holy trinity of lemon, oregano and olive oil, baked; and also garides, like scampi but with tomato sauce and crumbled feta.
Pan-fried cod is served with skordalia, potatoes mashed with enough garlic to permeate a small stadium; and there is sometimes tsipoura, a wonderful Mediterranean white fish.
The best desserts are kataifi, like baklava but with shredded wheat standing in for those phyllo pastry leaves; and rizogalo, a thick, creamy rice pudding topped with cinnamon. If you want to wash it all down with a thimble of muddy Greek coffee, you can ask a waiter to read the grounds for you.
I read mine myself and they told me that Opa was going to be a rousing success. Shall we ... dance?