Fort Lauderdale: Taverna Opa

Food: 3.5 out of 5
Service: 1 out of 5

Saturday night was my sister's birthday! She wanted to go to a fun place for her big 2-6. We thought Taverna Opa would be a great choice since it's very lively and conveniently close to my house.

We arrived at the restaurant at our reservation time and were told by the hostess that it would be a few minutes. It had just rained so I knew they had to get rid of some outside seating they were counting on. Twenty minutes later, no sign of a table. I finally found the hostess and she said it would be a "few more minutes". Well...if a "few" is 20 minutes then I won't be happy. But we were seated pretty quickly after that.


Our apps(from left to right) Meatballs, Hummus, Greek Salad

We did not get menus. I knew that on Friday & Saturday nights they have a set menu. I had looked online, and the cheapest option was $25. Being that there were 10 of us and various income levels I'm sure, I already looked and decided on the $25. With that said...the waiter came by and started explaining to the table the $45 menu only and exclaimed how wonderful it was. When I asked about the $25, he told me it was not good at all and not enough food. He said that the $45 was much better. I told him again I wanted the $25 menu. He then told me again that it was a bad decision. This went on for about 2 minutes...I was fuming!! Plus...he did not even ask us if we wanted drinks. We had to get all our drinks from the bar. The bartender was the only good service of the whole night! Our server was insanely incompetent. I wish I remembered his name because I would have mentioned it...so everyone reading this could avoid him...but so you know, he was a middle aged, short, stocky jerk-off who was obviously suffering from a bad case of Napoleon Complex. I was trying not to show my anger at the restaurant because I didn't want him to spit in my food. Okay, now I think I'm done venting.


My Gyro...yes there is pita bread underneath all that

The food came...lots of food! "Not Enough" my a$$! First we got some warm pita bread and a make your own hummus with chickpeas, olive oil and spices served in a mortar in pestle so you would grind it up yourself. It was good, but I like the creaminess of regular hummus better. We also got a greek salad, meatballs, stuffed grape leaves, saganaki (the flaming cheese!), and an assortment of dips. Those were just the appetizers! My favorite was the cheese. It had great flavor and was hot and melty. The meatballs were dry. Most of the dips were good. They were tzatziki, baba ganoush (eggplant), and some kind of fish. This fish one was too fishy tasting. But the baba ganoush was delicious. Obviously all these appetizers take up a lot of space on the table, but the servers didn't clear the table even once! Then our entrees came, I got a Gyro. It was tasty, but I was too full to eat. I only ate about 1/4 of it. It tasted like mostly beef, and it looked more like a thinly sliced sausage than being sliced from a big slab of meat. I would have also liked to be able to pick it up to eat it, but there was alot of fillings and picking it up was not a good idea.

We didn't have dessert, but we did have a really good time dancing. At Taverna Opa, they play really loud pop, Latin, and Greek music. They also let you throw napkins everywhere and dance on the tables. It's worth it to go once for a big celebration, but the service was so horrible I would not go back.


Our table after the napkin throwing