Cafe Artemis — Restaurant in Campbell

Mediterranean cuisine is one that I like to eat fairly often. It spans a lot of countries and offers some tantalizing options based on how adventurous the restaurant wants to get. At times, the vegetarian options are limited but those few can be quite tasty. For a semi-picky eater like me who does not prefer eggplant, Greek vegetarian options tend to be one or two dishes. I still like the food and it is with that spirit that we made a trip to Cafe Artemis in Campbell, CA. This is my brief review.

Cafe Artemis is located in the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, CA. It is located near the Rockbottom brewery in the complex. We went on a mild Fall Tuesday evening. The place had a handful of patrons and it was not difficult to find a place for the five of us. We got seated and a waitress promptly appeared to take our orders. We were all hungry and in the mood to order everything vegetarian they had to offer and we pretty much did.

Cafe Artemis dinner menu had a lot of vegetarian appetizer options but very few past that. A few salads here and there and one entree vegetarian dish was all there was. A lunch menu option- vegetarian kebap (kebab) was not on the dinner menu but we were able to convince the chef to make one for us. In all, we ordered the Saganaki Opa, Tzatziki and Hummus for appetizers. We were also offered complementary bread with a herb cheese that was well received by my 6 year old.

The Saganaki Opa was definitely a sight to behold when it was flamed table side. It looked great but was a tad too salty for some of our taste. The tzatziki was very tasty as was the hummus. The pita bread accompanying the tzatziki and hummus was also very soft and nice to eat.

The entrees we ordered were the following - Greek salad with falafel extra, vegetarian kebap, mediterranean okra and Melitzanosalata (eggplant salad). My Greek salad was very good although the falafels were not as warm as I would have liked them. The kebap came in for good feedback. The Okra was also well received. The Melitzanosalata had salt complaints. One common theme was that there was too much salt in the food. Not sure if it was just this one night or this was a regular occurrence. My salad didnt have such an issue.

The group chose the Warm gelato with ouzo torte to go with a birthday candle. The dessert was heavenly. It had the right balance of chocolate, ice cream and strawberries to make it simply deadly. Loved the combo and the packaging.

Overall, it was a good dinner- hopefully the extra salt is a one off thing. I wish they had more vegetarian entrees so I could make multiple visits. Worth a visit if you have never been to the place. Tricky for frequent visits for vegetarians given the lack of more vegetarian dishes...

Really good Med cuisine. I believe it may be Turkish, as there are many variations of Mediterranean dishes from each country. It was my second time here, as I discovered this place when I came on a business trip and stayed at the DoubleTree hotel which is a walking distance from the restaurant.

They start you off with a bread basket and some Sun roasted tomato butter. At Least that's what I think it is? It's definitely butter but it is orange I'm color and not sweet. Bread is a small loaf cut into slices, not sure what kind of bread- crunchy crust with sesame seeds.

I started with a Tzaziki appetizer, it was delicious! Had roughly 4 or 5 freshly toasted slices of pita bread.

I then had the Kebab combo plate, 4 different kinds of kebabs: Lamb, Chicken, Beef, and Kofta. The difference here is that the dish came with a side of Bulgar and I swapped out the rice for a salad. The salad was good, but it didn't have a Lemon Juice & Olive Oil dressing where others (Lebanese) would. That's ok, because this is from a different region. There was some kind of glaze (or maybe juices from the meats) poured over the kebabs, which I'm not a fan of. But it just seemed to be meat juice. The meats were really good, the Kofta was surprisingly very good (I usually never order Kofta).

Even their Unsweetened iced Tea tasted freshly brewed and very good! With a Lemon slice! I had decided this was where I would go for dinner when I came back for another business trip. I ate everything but the Bulgar. And only a few pieces of the bread basket, but all the...

The food is good and service is generally fine, but not spectacular. If you are there at the height of the lunch or dinner rush, things will be slow. Unfortunately, if you come at a really off time (in the middle between lunch and dinner), we've had really slow service, too. Other times when it is reasonably busy but not jam-packed, the service has been good.

They offer a good selection of Turkish and Greek standards. I particularly like the chicken souvlakia and the adana kebab. We also stubbornly continue to order the "meze sampler platter for two" even though it is no longer on the menu. It doesn't save you any money but it gives you a half portion of each of the 6 meze options they have, at the price of 3 full orders, so you can enjoy a little bit of everything if you like variety.

They also offer a few Greek beers and wines along with other standard options.

This place is in the Pruneyard shopping center, so be warned, parking can be painful, especially on the...