OOMPA!

I love the Greek. Even more so after patronizing Taverna Opa tonight at Pointe Orlando. This is my restaurant review. Get ready.

I had been hanging out with Rachel all day and she invited me to go along with her tonight to celebrate one of her friend's birthday at a Greek restaurant. I love Greek food so I was all in. Before we headed out, we decided to look up the restaurant to see if we could get an idea about how much it would cost. We checked out some reviews while we were at it and saw that we should expect belly dancers, napkin throwing, table dancing and a general festive environment. Intriguing. I was pumped.

We got there and the place was packed! The birthday girl, Anna, had called ahead to put our names on the "preferred seating" list (what the heck does that even mean?!?), but I don't think it really made too much of a difference. We waited for a good hour before they finally seated. Unfortunately, the service was anything but speedy. On the bright side, the food was great and not too bad priced. I shared some sort of meatball appetizer with Rachel and we both ordered the Greek Salad which oddly enough didn't come with any lettuce, just a bunch of different veggies. They also served fresh, warm pita bread and chick peas with oil and garlic that you mash up yourself to make hummus. It was very delicious.

Now on to the entertainment....Oh dear me, the entertainment. When we got there we noticed that the DJ was spinning some sort of Greek Techno music. So strange. But, I'm not gonna lie, it got me dancing. I mean, seriously. How can you not dance when you hear Greek Techno music?!? That's what I thought. We went inside and found napkins thrown alllll over the place. When the waiter came to give us appetizer plates he threw a bunch of napkins at us (and of course we all cheered). The table next to us was already well on their way to table dancing. I think they had about 5 people up on their table dancing away. For a while we just watched in awe as we were sure that one of the guys was going to pop a hip with his dance moves. Across the way, an elderly lady (definitely at least 80) was doing quite a bit of dancing of her own (all while wearing a blue sparkly top with American flags on it. God Bless the USA)! Finally, one of the guys in our group, decided to be bold and lept onto the table and began dancing. It wasn't long before all 9 of us were on our table dancing. And yes, it took strategy to fit all 9 of us on the table. Seriously though...soooooo much fun. Soon, our food came and we were forced to seize dancing for the time being. We enjoyed our meal and afterwards cleared the table to resume our mad dance skills. The large party of over 20 people next to us had just left and the waiters had cleared the table. One of the other guys in our group took this chance to dance up and down the entire length of the table. Entertaining doesn't even begin to describe it. Soon 2 ladies joined him and he did a swift sidestep to escape their dancing.

The evening was ridiculously fun and Taverna Opa gets 2 thumbs up from me. Definitely not a restaurant to go to if you want to sit and chat or catch up with someone. It's more like a Greek Night Club that serves really good food. It's a great hang out place. Rachel even told me that she saw it received a 2007 Foodie Award, so others certainly agree that it's good.

So next time you're in Orlando, check it out. But make sure you've got your dancin' shoes on.