Stalactites is known for serving up souvlaki when people need it the most, i.e. 5am on a Saturday morning. I never actually got around to try it out, until recently when I visited a friend, and her apartment was just one block down from Stalactites, so we decided to go there for dinner. She told me that every time she walks past the restaurant, it's buzzing with people both dining in, and waiting for take out souvlaki, so clearly it's not a place that's only frequented by people needing a hangover cure.
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| Mixed dips | Clockwise from the top: tzatziki, hommus, tarama (caviar & lemon) and melizanosalata (eggplant & garlic) - $9.00 |
We wanted to try a few new dips, but still have some old favourites, which meant that the selection of mixed dips was perfect. The tzatziji and hommus were quite standard, but the stand out for me was the eggplant dip, I loved how distinct the earthy flavour of the eggplant was!
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| Pita Bread - $1.70 each |
Of course we needed some pita bread for the dips, these were nothing special, but sometimes that's exactly what you're after.
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| Mixed Giro Platter | Marinated spring lamb and chicken from the spit (L) - $29.00 |
One of the girls didn't eat lamb, so we decided to get the mixed platter. The portion was pretty reasonable, and the chicken was a lot more tender than I expected, although there was some dry pieces in the mix as well, but I guess that's just to be expected.
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| Mixed Giro Platter | Marinated spring lamb and chicken from the spit (L) - $29.00 |
I've always been a huge fan of lamb, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed the lamb more than chicken in this platter. The marinade made the lamb quite flavoursome, dip it in a bit of melitzanosalata, and it will completely hide the dryness of some pieces ;)
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| Bowl of chips (L) - $7 |
The chips were thick cut, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, I wish they were served with chicken salt though, ahhh chicken salt.
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| Greek Garden Salad (L) - $11.50 |
We ordered some greens to make sure that we were having a nice and balanced meal (not). The salad was lacking in dressing, but I enjoyed the big chunks of feta, I remember back in the days I hated olives and feta, time really is a curious thing hey.
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| Stalactites |
The food was decent at Stalactites, but the environment was a bit too hustle and bustle considering how much you were paying for the meal, it definitely isn't a place that you can chill and just chat for hours after you finished eating. The wait wasn't too bad for us, maybe around 10 minutes to get a table, but there were people lining up for tables throughout our entire meal, so this place is obviously very popular. I'm not in a rush to go back and try out the souvlaki, since I've already found one that I'm very fond of that's a lot closer to home - a food truck at Caribbean Market in case you're wondering - but at least I'll have a place other than Maccas to eat at next time I'm stuck in city for the whole night.
How to get there:
Stalactites is on Lonsdale Street, 10 minutes walk away from Melbourne Central.
Labels: CBD, dinner, food, Greek
