Niko Niko's

That's the name of our favorite Greek restaurant in the Montrose section of downtown Houston. We went there the other day, to meet our friends K and B for lunch. Lucky them, they live just ten minutes away from Niko Niko's, and we meet them there a lot when we're in that area. Then again, we live twenty minutes away from Babbo Bruno's, and whenever K and B drive into Clear Lake, we go there for dinner. So the "luck" is even on both parts.

Niko Niko's used to be the smallest little restaurant, with lines of people waiting to order their food, and other lines of people waiting for tables inside or outside on the patio under umbrella-covered tables. All waiting patiently, I might add, because the food is always delicious and the owners and their employees are always so nice.

Last summer, Niko Niko's expanded their kitchen, their patio, and their dining area. Now they have three times the space in all those sections. The food is still as delicious as it was, their menu is the same, their employees (who have been with them for many years) are still there also. K told us that Niko Niko's stayed open for all of the renovation work, except for the two weeks when they re-did the kitchen.

We were all wondering if the restaurant would lose any of its charm or its home-y atmosphere when they made it bigger, but we're happy that it didn't. It is still the same little Niko Niko's, only a little bit bigger, with the greatest Greek food, the happiest employees, and a very gracious owner who remembers all the faces of her regular customers.

Niko Niko's is the only restaurant around that makes me break my "no French fries" rule. My husband always gets their fries with his meal, and I always take one or two. Sometimes five or six, as was the case the other day. The French fries are entirely homemade... cut by hand, fried in the best olive oil, then seasoned by hand. The only fries I've ever had anywhere that taste like the ones my grandmother used to make-- the only difference being that my grandmother cut her potatoes into round slices, rather than long thin slices. One bite of a Niko Niko's French fry, and I'm back in my grandmother's kitchen in Queens.