Business & Tech
Restaurant Week Profile: STAMNA Greek Taverna
The charming and homey Broad Street Restaurant offers reasonably priced, authentic food from the Greek Islands
In honor of the township’s first-ever Restaurant Week March 4-10, Bloomfield Patch published profiles of many of the participating restaurants. Today is the last day of Restaurant Week.
Husband and wife Alex and Angela Nissirios, co-owners of , spoke with Patch about their involvement with Restaurant Week 2012.
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Stamna Greek Taverna: 1099 Broad Street (near Watchung Avenue)
About the Owners: The Nissirios family has lived both in the US and Greece, specifically a small Greek island called Karpathos. They now live in Glen Ridge and own two Bloomfield restaurants, Stamna and The Nevada Diner.
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Sons Themistoklis and Manolis, 18 and 22, work at Stamna with Angela while daughter Irene, a Glen Ridge high school student, works at The Nevada Diner. Dad Alex divides his time between the two establishments.
“I wanted to own a little café because my kids are grown,” says Angela. “We brought stuff back from Greece so it feels like home.”
What’s on the menu for Restaurant Week? “Our Restaurant Week lunch menu is $11 because it includes dessert, but our regular lunch menu is only $10 -- every day!”
Lunch Menu $11: Mousaka (baked eggplant, potatoes and ground meat), Pastichio (baked pasta with ground meat and Bechamel sauce), Spanokopita (spinach pie), Greek Style Burger, Arni Kokkinisto (lamb braised in savory tomato sauce with orzo), Sardines (fried or grilled), Salad, Greek Village Omelet
3-Course Dinner Menu $30
Choice of appetizer: Gigantes (tomato braised giant lima beans), Octopus cakes, Cold Dips: skordalia -garlic and potato; tzatziki yogurt, cucumber and garlic; Taramosalata - caviar; Melitzanosalata- roasted eggplant and Fava - yellow split pea dip.
Choice of Entrée: Solomo (grilled salmon steak), Garides Santorini (Greek style shrimp sauteed with tomato and feta cheese), Kotopoulo Fileto (grilled chicken breast) and Arni Kokkinisto (lamb braised in savory tomato sauce with orzo.)
All entrees come with oven roasted lemon potatoes, rice or fresh steamed greens.
Dessert: Loukoumades (fried dough in syrup, sprinkled with cinnamon)
Best thing about Stamna: The friendly, warm feeling to the place. “Sometimes we give customers free dessert or free dumplings – but when we’re really busy on Friday and Saturdays there’s no room to make them!”
People come back for: Our house specialty, Karpathian Makarounes, is homemade, old-fashioned whole wheat pasta topped with sautéed onions and traditional cheese.
What you may not know about Stamna: The Nisiotiki is a Karpathian delicacy specific to the island. It is made with Karpathian wheat rusks topped with fresh grated tomatoes, feta cheese, kalamata olives, oregano and Greek olive oil and vinegar.
“It’s like in Greece when the old ladies make it by hand. This is the one dish we have that you can only get on our island.”
Something else to know: “We’re open seven days a week, with parking in the back, next to the dry cleaners.”
STAMNA Greek Taverna
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