This post inaugurates a new category on my site that involves the semi-regular review of chicken souvlaki dinners served at Greek Restaurants. The benefit of such a review is the comparison of the same dish served at different restaurants, providing an interesting view of each establishment.

On occasion, my wife Emily and I go out in search of chicken souvlaki. We do this in part because it's comfort food, so if either one of us is feeling ill, we can still go out and enjoy ourselves. We also tend to go exploring, out for a drive into parts of the city we're not familiar with, or in new cities, and all over North America there are Greek restaurants serving chicken souvlaki.

So last night, we ended up at Mr. Greek Oakville, which is located at 2501 Hampshire Gate, just off of Dundas St and Winston Churchill Blvd. Our server was Foujan, and we sat at table number 27. When we arrived just after 7, the place was packed, and when we we're done just after 8 the place was almost empty.

Mr. Greek is a popular Toronto based franchise, and Emily and I have had positive and negative experiences at a number of their GTA locations. This location in Oakville was somewhere in the middle of this range.

This restaurant was located as part of one of the ubiquitous strip malls that marks the suburban experience. Most of the Mr. Greek locations in the burbs are called "Express" and are focused more on take-out than eat-in. While the dining area in this Oakville location was not expansive, it was also not an "Express". However the area at the front for take-out meant the door was constantly opening, and the restaurant as a whole somewhat cold. In fact even the bathrooms were really cold, which suggested the heat was either turned way too low or was off altogether.

One of the things Emily really likes with her chicken souvlaki dinner is to begin with garlic bread. She's happiest when it arrives first to help curb her hunger, but also when there's enough garlic bread to be used during the dinner. We almost always make a point of requesting this from the server, and last night was the same.

Unfortunately the garlic bread didn't come until after we'd finished half the meal.

I also always ask for extra water, in addition to either the draft beer or large bottle of mineral water that I order at the start of the meal. Like the garlic bread, this also was delayed, with the table beside us getting our request of water instead of us.

The food itself was fine. The fries ok, the tzatziki ok, the chicken ok. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either.

As a result, we give Mr. Greek Oakville a rating of 2 out of 5. One point for decent but not great service, one point for decent but not great food. No points awarded for the space because of the cold (we were wearing sweaters).

The total bill was $29.83 which included $3.43 in taxes for 2 chicken souvlaki dinners and one large bottle of mineral water. I left a tip of $4.25 which is 14.25% of the total, a low amount for me, as I like to tip in the 20% and above range. My tips tend to be influenced by the water service, which in this case was not great.