Portofino's Italian Restaurant continues to delight customers with traditional recipes served on Greek Nights every Tuesday and Thursday.
"It's gone very well with a lot of good remarks and return guests," says coowner Dimitris Agrafiotis. "We have a couple who come from Alabama; they drive an hour."
The evenings of traditional dishes start at 5 p.m. and run until close with Greek music and television for entertainment.
"It's been pretty fun and interesting," Agrafiotis says.
The menu changes every two or three weeks as Agrafiotis and his fatherin-law and co-owner, Angelo Douvris, create new recipes. One of the newest items is the Saganaki, a flaming Greek Kefalotyri cheese.
"It's a hard Greek cheese lightly breaded and cooked with butter, doused with brandy and lit up," says Agrafiotis.
Along with the flaming cheese, which is spectacular to see and taste, the restaurant features a new Mediterranean-style grouper with lemon butter dill sauce and artichokes. Agrafiotis introduced a Grecian- style shrimp and rice dish as well as braised beef tenderloin with homemade red tomato sauce.
For guests wanting to try a little bit of everything, Agrafiotis created the combination platter, which features pastitsio, mousakas and dolmades with potatoes and Greekstyle peas. Pastitsio is a dish of baked macaroni mixed with ground beef and cheeses topped with béchamel sauce. Mousakas is eggplant layered with potatoes, ground beef and cheese topped with béchamel sauce. Dolmades is a family recipe of grape leaves stuffed with rice and beef and topped with a creamy lemon butter sauce.
"We've had a lot of customer feedback already about the authenticity of the food, the presentation and very affordable prices," says Agrafiotis.
The purpose behind Greek Nights is to introduce new recipes, gauge customers' responses and eventually add the favorite dishes to the restaurant's daily menu.
Along with plans to create a permanently blended menu of Greek and Italian dishes, Agrafiotis is introducing customers to more Greek wines.
"The most popular wine is the Domaine Harlaftis Argilos Noman - a well balanced, really dark red and medium bodied dry wine," Agrafiotis says. "We're also bringing in a couple more Greek wines through a distributor from New York."
PORTOFINO'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT
LOCATION: 6407 Ringgold Road.
PHONE: 499-9696.
HOURS: Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
NICE TO KNOW: Greek Nights with a specialty Greek menu are hosted every Tuesday and Thursday night starting at 5 p.m.