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Type: Greek
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Sun., noon-9:30 p.m.
Good Choices: Shish kebab dinners (chicken and lamb); shish kebab sandwiches (chicken and lamb); lamb chop dinner; baked lamb.
Credit Cards: Cash only
Access: Fully accessible
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DEMOS
146 Lexington Street, Waltham
(781) 893-8359
Restaurant reviewed 09/03/98 by Sheryl Julian
This place has the perfect name; Demos is indeed for ordinary people. Here is Greek fast food that happens to be prepared quickly but doesn't lack quality.
There are many quirks about Demos, and its loyal clientele indulges all of them. One is the way you order your food at the counter, sit down, and they find you. This is the system during the busy hours; the restaurant adds a 12 percent gratuity to the bill to cover this quasi-table service.
How the counter people match order to face _ even if you're a first-time customer _ beats me. But they do it every time.
The original Demos in Watertown, near the Square, was opened nearly 30 years ago by John Demos, who drew such crowds that he never needed to raise his prices dramatically. His secret was volume. It still is, under Nick and George Delegas, who bought the Watertown location from Demos in 1989.
Two years ago, they expanded into Waltham. Both places can handle 300 to 400 people on a busy night, and they cater the popular items on their menu.
Where Watertown is crowded and something of a neighborhood meeting place, Waltham is bigger, lighter, and less personal. But not the people at the counter. Greek hospitality sets the standard.
So do the shish kebabs ($7.95). On the dinner plate, two skewers, each with four chunks of meat, are offered with rice pilaf or fries and a Greek salad. Chicken and lamb kebabs are meltingly tender and moist, with squares of green pepper and onion threaded between the morsels on the skewers. The pilaf comes with an intense tomato sauce.
The salad, made with iceberg lettuce and hard tomatoes, is tossed with dressing too far in advance of serving, and the whole thing doesn't do justice to such good kebabs. What I would love to see is a Greek salad made with large leaves of romaine, a lemon and oil dressing, and a little feta, but no tomatoes _ unless they're native to our soil.
All the kebabs _ chicken, lamb, and beef _ also come as a sandwich ($4.25), in which a single skewer is set on a round of pita bread layered with salad, so you can roll it up.
Lamb chops ($9.75), char-broiled on the outside, pink inside, three on the plate, make a very satisfying meal.
The baked lamb ($8.75) is real Greek village cooking, beautifully seasoned, succulent meat on a giant knobby bone cooked in a spicy tomato sauce.
There are some disappointments. Roast chicken breast ($5.10), was too dry one night, and the bread on that same night could have been fresher.
Still, I'll return often. I like the people who work here, and the pride they take in getting you your meal. You can order beer with dinner, and five people can eat well for $54. You can't do better at home.
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