I’ve only been to Greece once, and the visit was brief. A little jaunt to Athens for a salsa festival, with some lovely meals at little restaurants around where we were – namely, the Olympic stadium and the Acropolis. But I did remember having some very nice battered fried cheese and fresh tasting salads.

And Blu Kouzina, the first full Greek restaurant in Singapore, authentically recreated some of that Greek experience for me. Decked out in clean whites and blues, the second floor of the restaurant had a very Santorini or Mediterranean feel to it, which was nice and relaxing. In addition, I believe some of the wait staff and chefs are actually Greek.

I had passed by the place quite a number of times (I live pretty close by) and saw lively crowds outside most of the time, and it looked really homely and fun, so I made a note to go try it sometime. Also saw nice pictures and positive words about it on Instagram. And when a Greek friend also mentioned it and subsequently arranged for a dinner party there, I was obviously rather keen to join in.

Our group of 9 shared a few starters and mains so we could try more things on the menu.

We began with the Saganaki with Figs (S$16.80) a lovely grilled cheese with fig sauce on a hot pan, the Tzatziki (yogurt mixed with cucumber, extra virgin olive oil and flavored with garlic) dip (S$12.80) with some Pita Bread (S$3.00), Spanakopita (S$12.30) which is phylo pastry filled with spinach, feta cheese, and herbs and the Xoriatiki (S$19.80) – Greek Salata with tomatoes, cucumber, onion, olives, feta cheese and green pepper, topped with extra virgin olive oil and organic vinegar.

These were all delicious, especially the grilled cheese with fig sauce – the warm, strong savoury flavour of the cheese went really well with the sweet yummy fig sauce (and I don’t usually like figs).

The smooth, light and creamy tzatziki dip was also terribly addictive. We kept dipping the pita bread into it like there was no tomorrow. We had a second order of both of these.

We then moved on to the Mousaka (S$24.80) a delicious oven baked eggplant potato and mincemeat lasagne of sorts, with béchamel sauce and the Dolmades Gialatzi (S$19.80) which is essentially vine leaves stuffed with rice.

Not a fan of the vine leaves with rice, but I absolutely loved the mousaka. Soft, creamy goodness of eggplants and mashed potatoes topped with a toasty oven-baked crust and the milky and rich béchamel sauce, mmm.

We also had the Roast Kotopoulo (chicken) in the oven (S$22.80, shown in the collage above), accompanied by potatoes, lemon, extra virgin olive oil and oregano. This was quite nice too – fairly tender and tasty.

The Meat Platter for 2 (S$83.80) was another dish we tried, which came with 4 Meat Balls, 2 Kalamaki (beef skewers), 2 Bifteki (beef patties), 4 Lamb Chops and fries.

This was pretty good as well, especially the lamb chops – we had that again on its own the second time we visited too, and they didn’t disappoint. Medium rare was beautiful pink and tender, and well done was surprisingly not too tough and still flavourful.

On another trip to Blu Kouzina, we went for more of the grilled seafood items as Z was in the mood for it.

For starters, we again had the Saganaki with Figs (so goood) and this time also tried the Imam Baildi (S$16.80), whole eggplants filled with a tomato based sauce, which I actually really liked (shown in the collage above). I do love my eggplants though, so I might be a bit biased here. But I thought the sharp and sweet tomato taste complemented the milder, soft grilled eggplant.

We then had the Psari Stin Sxara (Greek Grilled Fish), a 400g Sea Bream at S$39.80 (also in the collage above) and two Grilled Jumbo Prawns in extra virgin olive oil and lemon (S$29.80 – S$15.80 for one, and S$43.80 for three).

The fish was tender and fresh, nicely covered with herbs and accompanied by a flavourful olive oil based sauce. The grilled prawns were nice too, though I felt they could be slightly juicer.

As we were pretty full, we only had desserts during the first visit. Tried the Galaktoboureko, a filo pastry filled with a semolina cream filling and topped with homemade syrup (S$13.80), and had some other roll thing on the house.

These were quite delicious and a nice end to the meal, though a tiny bit too sweet and flour-y for my liking.

There were also rather interesting looking Greek wines/alcohol on the menu, though we didn’t really try any I think. Someone tried a Greek coffee during the first trip though, and I hear it’s crazy strong.

We spent around S$50 to S$80 per pax each trip.

Good experiences overall; the place really scores in their starters and lovely environment!

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Blu Kouzina
893 Bukit Timah Road
Singapore 589615
The restaurant has sinced moved to 10 Dempsey Road.
Website: http://blukouzina.com/

Open for lunch on Fridays to Sundays from 12pm to 2.30pm and dinner from Mondays to Sundays from 6pm to 10pm.