Review of The Real Greek

It came as a surprise to me that with such a proliferation of Greek restaurants, we needed one to explicitly state that it was the real one. Having never been to Greece I comment not on the authenticity of the food, only on this rather pleasant experience. Mezzes are the order of the day in Real Greece, these are basically Tapas but spelt differently. The basic idea is the same, lots of small dishes with contrasting textures and flavours. The danger with this type of meal is people can make poor choices with no sense of structure, each dish neither complementing nor balancing with any other. Low-grade amateur food critics would probably fall into this trap, sucked in by the range of choices into trying everything they could, so we did.
The dishes come in a stack like a savoury high tea with a lot of olive oil. Whilst I waited for Yates, I ordered a plate of Gigandes Plaki. They were detailed in the menu as "slow cooked giant beans from Kastoria in a rich tomato sauce." Whilst being generally realistic in my expectations, when something is described as "giant," I expect it to be so. If the trojan horse had been only somewhat larger than a regular sized horse, no one would have fit inside the fucking thing. If the cyclops had been a bit bigger than Oddyseus, then a swift poke with a stick would have got them out of that mess. If something is "giant" then it should be bloody massive. These beans were only quite big. So after my initial disappointment at the size of their beans, I took the plunge and had a forkful. I couldn't tell they were from Kastoria but they had a very humble and comforting texture. The tomato sauce was gentle enough to actually complement the beans, something Heinz cannot comprehend.
The food that seemed Real Greek was generally far superior. Bifteki, a burger with spring onions and thyme served with minted yogurt, was for example, much more interesting than Lamb Cutlets, which were essentially just grilled lambchops. The Lamb Kefte, a minced kebab with caramelised onions, coriander and spices had an air of authenticity to it that the grilled octopus could not muster.
Dessert was a similar affair, with a few Real Greek options. The ubiquitous Baklava was not as crispy as I would have hoped, although not without its honeyed charm. Kataifi is a greek dessert not too dissimilar to Baklava, it's actually a very thin pasta which went well with it's chopped pistachios and yet more honey.
The Real Greek may not be the most real restaurant nor even the most Greek, but it's not ludicrously overpriced for where it is (Covent Garden), and it’s quite a nice way to have a meal, sampling lots of different foods. Semantics are important though, so they must either change the name of the bean dish or genetically modify them to be huge.