Hellas Restaurant: Great Greek Food in Tarpon Springs, Florida

Located on the historic sponge docks of Tarpon City, Florida, a largely Greek-American town, - on the state's central-west coast, near Tampa - Hellas Restaurant offers authentic Greek fare in an authentically Greek ambiance.The restaurant's Web site states that it was voted the "Best of the Bay" as the "#1 Greek Restaurant," and it is not hard to see why.

Hellas Restaurant, which dates back to 1970, offers a wide array of food ranging from seafood to desserts and everything in between. My family and I stopped by not too long ago and tried a Greek classic that most people in the U.S. know as a tasty sandwich whose name is sometimes mispronounced---the gyro. Yes, I have heard many people pronounce the word like "jyro," as if the "g" sounds like a "j." Thanks to the fact my parents used to frequent a Greek restaurant at a local mall when I was a kid, I grew up knowing the word sounds more like the word "eero" than "jyro."

At any rate, our stop by Hellas Restaurant included orders for a gyro, Greek-style potatoes, and a Greek salad (another classic). I was impressed with the expediency of the food service---we received our food in about 10 minutes. Quality and flavor was not sacrificed for speed. The gyros were hot, well-stocked, and absolutely delicious. I was very satisfied with the amount of the scrumptious tzatziki sauce---gyros can sometimes be either too wet or too dry. Of course, this is all a matter of personal taste. For the sake of providing a more objective description of the amount of tzatziki sauce on the gyros, I wil say that Hellas' offered enough sauce on the gyro that the sandwich tasted moist, but I did not have sauce dripping all over my hands. The Greek potatoes made for a nice complement to the gyros and, of course, we had the Greek salad. The Greek salad, complete with feta cheese and potato salad (of course!), could be a meal in itself for some.