Food Review: Greek Express (Columbus, OH - Polaris)

It's been a bit of time since I've done a review on a fast food Greek restaurant so I decided to stop by this new establishment a few days ago, Greek Express, in the Polaris Shopping Center area across from Kroger. This is one of two locations run by the same company, the other down OH-750 in nearby Lewis Center.

For dinner, I tried their dinner plate of gyros and rice and a serving of fried calamari for an appetizer. The servings were very generous, in fact a little bigger than I wanted for dinner that evening, but I'm not the one to complain about extra food. I was even more surprised by the taste of the actual food. The gyro meat was quite dry and the rice was seasoned very unevenly and over-buttered and salted in multiple areas. The pita bread was the only real good-tasting object on my plate, and even that could have been a bit less rubbery. As for the calamari, it was obvious that it was generic, with a very bland crispy outside and a tasteless squid inside that screamed for sauce. I think that explains why I received multiple packages of the "tzatziki" sauce (I put it in quotations because I really didn't know what the heck that stuff was supposed to taste like).

Looks tantalizing, doesn't it? Couldn't say much about taste...it ended at looks.

It's very rare that I'll severely criticize a food establishment, but this one just deserved it. But for $10 or less you can at least fill your stomach so you won't feel as hungry.

And a suggestion for independent food establishments that plan to carry Greek-style food: don't show off the fact that you get your supply of food products from a major distributor. If you ever see the "Kronos" brand emblazoned on anything at a fast food Greek restaurant in the form of signs, posters, and tray liners, expect everything to taste like this. Seriously. Check out http://www.kronosproducts.com/. That's like saying gourmet food by Sygma and not by the expertise of your high-caliber chefs. Good grief.

If you want to try your luck on "Greek" food, Greek Express is located at 8685 Sancus Boulevard, Columbus, OH 43240. After a quick chat with a relative of one of the employees after dinner in the parking lot (he was admiring by motorcycle), he did admit to me that the chicken was ten times better than the gyros. Some patronage right there.

On a bright note, you won't have to travel too far down Sancus to get to Greek food that doesn't suck. I suggest visiting Crazzy Greek on Sancus/Lazelle to get that strange aftertaste out of your mouth.