"Greek? no chance. "

A review of Eraina Cosmopolitan Taverna by Tim - Friday 28th of November 2008

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So, while reading the explorer one day i came across this restaurant listed under 'greek'. curious, i looked it up on the web..
..apparently the Eraina had been a well kept secret, an undiscovered institution, proud and long standing in cambridge...

...i think it would have been better if it had been left undiscovered, an embarassing secret..

lets start with the outside:
actually, i think this was its best feature, it looks nice on the way in, even nicer on the way out though i assure you...

once inside, the place was quiet, with only a young student couple seated near the door. The waiter seated us at the table immediately next to them, which i found a little ridiculous, and a bit embarassed at intruding on their privacy...

The fact that the staff are Asian is neither here nor there, but to try and pass off as greek? how bizzare...

The menu consisted of around 5 or 6 pages, each crammed with a vast, vast array of dishes written in a barely legible scrawl.
its confusing, the huge range of dishes puts far too much pressure on the kitchen if its to be cooked fresh, and subsequently the food suffers.

and suffer it did. terribly.

you could tell from the speed it arrived that it was fresh from the microwave.

the "lamb & mint sauce" roast i had was appalling, i would've expected better from a 80s scool canteen.. it was so blatantly microwaved from a prepacked portion ordered from brakes or 3663 (big, mass produced garbage) and was fatty to the point of being 60-40 fat-meat, the sauce was a brown, semicongealed slop and tasted of, well, nothing really, certainly no trace of mint....
all served with refried chips and gray vegetables, also microwaved from a packet.

looking round the table, i could see that the other dishes were of equal state; a rissoto, which was just plain boiled rice with a gloop of cheese microwaved over it. a "Cordon bleu" which looked equally disgusting, which was apparently almost inedible, and another undescribable mess.

all served with all served with refried chips and gray vegetables, microwaved from a packet.

notice a theme?

the only thing that came close to being fresh was the salad, a nice touch, but far too little.

the service was pretty bad too, dumping the dishes at the table was a very good way for our waiter to earn himself a 0% commision...

we ended it there, not really trusting the idea of dessert, paid and left, apologising profusely to my friends for my choice of establishment...

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