Village Taverna — Restaurant in New York

UPDATED 6/7 Knocking down a star and giving an update after my second visit. Unfortunately the service was really lacking this past time. While the food was still very tasty, our server took a verrrry long time to get to our table, and when we asked for more bread, there was a miscommunication (after we’d asked 3 times) that made the bread wait about 30 minutes. Possibly longer. I will say, one of our party got to the restaurant first and requested we sit outside, but when the rest of our party of 4 arrived, it was too hot for another guest, so we asked to be moved inside and they accommodated no problem. I can only think this may have been why it took so long to greet our table and give us water. By the time the server did greet us and bring water, we were fully ready to order. Maybe it was an off day. But I’m not running to go back.

PS: the fried calamari is more of a fritto misto with a LOT of chickpeas

ORIGINAL REVIEW: (Originally gave 5 stars) We came here for my friend’s birthday and had an amazing time!!! Our server was nice on this cold and very busy Saturday night, but the food was what really shined. I highly recommend going with a group so you can order lots of items and share. Take advantage of the specials because they really are good — there’s a reason they’re being featured during that time! We ordered a combo of classics and specials, and shared a bottle of the Makedonikos Tsantali, which was the perfect complement to our food....

Terrible food! Literally made me nauseous. If you crave traditional greek food, this isn't it! I'm so upset I ordered from here instead of my regular greek place, because this one was faster. I ordered vegetarian moussaka, halloumi cheese and horiatiki salad. My usual greek food order. Moussaka was horrible, it was just think cut vegetables, not the ones that were even supposed to be in there. Eggplant, squash and potatoes fine, thats usually what's included, but they also had super thick carrots and artichoke in it with was so terrible. The texture of the dish was completely off, there was not enough sauce it to make it creamy as it is supposed to be. Not too much flavor either. Next was horiatiki salad and I chose the large one for extra. Do not order this, they disrespected this traditional sald so bad. The container was a regular size and wasn’t that full so I don’t what was the difference in price for. Mind you this sald was about 18 dollars and absolutely not worth it. It had 2 small pieces of feta on top, probably one full tomato (not the best quality), one cucumber, a whole lot of red onion and green peppers, which are not supposed to be there at all! It should have been more tomatoes and cucumbers instead of the green pepper. Halloumi cheese was alright, 3 small pieces over chopped cucumbers, tomatoes and too much onions again, nothing to write home about. Delivery was great though, but the food is terrible, overpriced and not...

We arrived around 4pm on 12-26-18. We were seated in a corner with windows near the bar. Nice views. I am detailing this so maybe the owners will know which "waiter" helped us. He was a young man with dark hair...Caucasian. He started of nice enough. Took our orders and disappeared. Anytime we wanted something we had to ask the bartender or anyone passing. We all ordered Musaka. We have had different versions nationwide of this. But here it was HORRIBLE. 90% zucchini, no meat, nothing nice about it. It was in a deep super hot dish more like a pizza pie. When we were ready for the check we had to flag another waiter down. That is when we asked what happened to our waiter. He simply said he went on break. I replied that this is not unusual...but when it does happen they will let us know that they are either leaving for the day or going on break and introduce the next waiter...this was not the case. We were just abandoned and had no one to help us. If the service was even decent I would have given this place 2 stars...but the food eventually matched the very bad service. I highly suggest you go anywhere else if you want real and good Greek food...