The souvlaki dish, skewers of marinated pork, also includes rice and vegetables. Photo by Alex Pajunas.

Over the past four years, Lazy Spoon Café has developed a loyal lunch crowd and become a mainstay at the Sunday Market. I tried them out in their first year, and having been informed they are now serving dinner, deemed it a good time for a full review.

While I don’t generally spend a great deal of my column’s space describing the atmosphere and ambiance of my weekly subjects – be it stunning and sophisticated, drab and depressing, view or no view – I must comment here that the Lazy Spoon Café doesn’t really feel like a restaurant; in fact, no eatery occupying Suite 107 at No. 10 Sixth St. ever has. This is more evident at night, when the chairs, tables and quiet made me feel a bit like I was in a hospital waiting room, and the windows and hallways reminded me of an office. I mention this only because it did interfere with my dining experiences, although the food is often above average and the service is absolutely spotless.

And while I find the location to be a detriment to the food and service, I am impressed with and must commend the owners for even attempting to serve some of the hot items they do using only an electric four-burner stove. They certainly make the most of the space they have.

While Lazy Spoon does offer many Greek specialties, they are wise to not promote themselves as a Greek restaurant, as the majority of the breakfast and lunch menus are dominated by standard American food items. In the past I have not taken kindly to misrepresentation – for instance, if they were instead named “Athens Café,” this review would turn out much differently. More importantly, it is probably a good business move to serve familiar, easily pronounceable food to the lunch-break masses, rather than having to educate the rushed.

That said, the Greek food is what they do best. I can have a chef salad, a BLT or a turkey sandwich anywhere, but a good lamb gyro ($8.95) is hard to come by in town. Also available with chicken or beef ($7.95), the gyro is done right, with just enough chopped lettuce, tomato and onion, and a near-perfect tzatziki (cool, creamy yogurt, cucumber and garlic) sauce within the warm pita wrap. At dinner, this tzatziki is served with warm pita wedges, which I greatly preferred to bread and butter.

Carlos Carillo pieces together a couple of Greek dishes for lunch inside the kitchen at the Lazy Spoon Café. Photo by Alex Pajunas.With the welcome absence of a fryer, Lazy Spoon offers potato salad, potato chips, soup or house salad as sides. I recommend spending the $1.50 to upgrade to the Greek salad, which substitutes Kalamata for black olives and adds feta cheese and red onions. And get the Greek herb vinaigrette: It’s wonderful, and you can get ranch, bleu cheese or Thousand Island anywhere.

Soups were good, for the most part. The often-available lemon-rice soup is not as lemony as I expected; it’s a nice balance with a porridge-like texture. Should you see it, order it. The same goes for the minestrone, a darker, richer version of the classic soup with al dente penne pasta. A navy bean soup was less successful, tasting slightly of liquid smoke; the absence of ham or bacon further convinces me of this.

The souvlaki ($8.95), skewers of marinated, perfectly cooked pork or chicken (you get two skewers, so try one of each) with a pilaf-style rice, pita and vegetables (green beans when I tried it) is a great dish at a great price.

The Spartan Combo ($9.25) includes half a gyro, a small Greek salad (so I recommend soup as your starter) and marinated pork. I like dishes like this which allow you to try a little of everything.

I did try several of the American lunch items, with varying results. A mushroom and swiss hamburger ($7.95) was good; the soft, pale bun especially. But the “Swiss” cheese was not the real deal, rather a processed “American Swiss.” A pastrami sandwich ($7.95) was disappointing. Although not stipulated in the menu, it also came with “Swiss” cheese, and was prepared hot like a grilled cheese sandwich. I’m sure it’s available cold, but I wasn’t offered a choice. Furthermore, the pastrami was sliced too thick, causing it to be tough and dragged out of the middle of the sandwich when bitten into. It is permissible to serve thick-cut pastrami granted you’ve made it yourself and cooked it long enough, but deli pastrami should be sliced paper-thin to avoid such unpleasantness. A Philly-style sandwich (beef or chicken, $7.95) was satisfactory but hardly a stand-out item.

Lean toward the Greek food at Lazy Spoon Café and you’re sure to have a good experience.

– The Mouth

mouth@coastweekend.com