Opa! (125 Good Days in Tacoma)

Bumping up this old post to report that Opa has closed. I drove by the other day and it looked like they were going away, called tonight and found out it's now a pizza/pasta joint. Too bad! I liked Opa! but found it too scary for the gluten challenged. I wonder if the new place is any good.

(Feel free to post about it if you try it, Italian food is right out for me.)

Original story posted 8/30/2007
Last night, Ensie, Kevin, Sarah, Joe of izenmania, and I got together to give Opa! Greek Cuisine a try. Opa! just opened last Friday, but the restaurant has a well-established look and feel. There's been a place in Tacoma for a sit-down Greek restaurant for a long time, and Opa! slides comfortably right in.

As soon as I entered the white-washed mediterranean interior I was ushered to our table, and had some time to peruse the menu before the rest of the party arrived. It's a pretty extensive menu, including a variety of Mexican dishes (the chefs are from Mexico originally) in the "fusion" section and some American standards like fish and chips. There's also a kids menu, with lots of options from the fried and breaded food groups.

But of course, it's the Greek food that we all came for. A basket of pita and tatsiki came while we were all making up our minds. I didn't hear any complaints about it from the wheat-entitled people in our group. We all shared an appetizer of assorted dips, olives, capers, cucumber, and pita. It was good, but next time if I were on my own I think I'd go for one of the feta, caper and olive combinations, since the giant capers were the best part.

Joe had the baked chicken dish, which looked great. Ensie and Sarah both had the spaghetti with Myzithra cheese, which came in an enormous portion that they worked on the entire time we were there and never seemed to make a dent. Kevin's lamb looked amazing, if I could have forked over the $19.25 I would have gone for it. I chose instead the Arni Lonia, (15.99) lamb stew, which was fantastic. The lamb was incredibly tender and the tomato-based stew had absorbed its flavor beautifully. It came with a side of rice pilaf and potatoes, the potatoes were great but so filling with the stew that I could barely touch them. Since I couldn't eat the bread that came with it, I used the rice to sop up some of the stew, and it went together very well. The rice didn't taste like it was flavored with the use of anything that came in a packet with a little picture of a chicken on it, which is a distinct improvement over most places around here. (When you're eating gluten free you eat a lot of rice.)

The stew was so filling I couldn't really think about desert. Ensie had a slice of cheesecake and Kevin and Sarah shared a white-chocolate covered baklava, an item that works out better in theory than in practice, since baklava is so dense and difficult enough to eat without a slippery coating. Still, who needs desert with all that great food.

The service was very attentive, although it did take a minute to figure out our complicated split check situation. We also ended up with a gratuity added on to the bill in addition to tax and tip, and I'm still not sure what that was all about. We probably could have easily straightened it out, though, had we made it an issue. All in all, there were very few wrinkles for a place that just opened one week ago tomorrow. Opa! has a children's menu and there were some children in the restaurant, but it doesn't have a "family restaurant" sort of stamp on it. Opa! would make a great place to go on a date, prices range from about $8 for a dinner salad or sandwich, to $25.50 for the "Zeus Platter" featuring many different kinds of meat. No alcohol is served just yet, but apparently they are working on adding beer and wine in the near future. (In the mean time, they serve enormous soft drinks loaded with crushed ice and refill them very quickly when you run out.) There's no "proper attire required" sign like Bella Vita next door, and they seemed just fine with the typical Northwesterner jeans and t-shirts most of our party sported.

Pictures when I get home.

Opa! Greek Cuisine

6104 6th Avenue

Tacoma, WA

253-565-0505