It's not all about looks -- it's about taste too.

Perfectly rectangular, an ordinary rustic-colored structure blends in on the busy street.  Located on Route 42 in Sharonville, The Athenian Restaurant possesses an odd charm and a delectable menu filled with a variety of tastes.  The perfect example of a hole-in-the-wall, The Athenian Restaurant’s lacking ascetics seem to pale in comparison to the truly appetizing ethnic food.

The small diner has a modest menu covering breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The culinary highlight is most certainly the wide assortment of gyros.  Pronounced “YEER-oh”, the gyro is a classic entre that originated from Greece.  A traditional gyro has various meats, vegetables, onions, and lettuce that is drizzled in tzatziki sauce and wrapped in a hearty pita bread.  The Athenian Restaurant puts a creative twist on the gyro, offering multiple different flavored gyros including: The Mediterranean Gyro, The Philly Gyro, The Buffalo Chicken Gyro, The Super Gyro, and The Classic Tzatziki Gyro.

After ordering The Philly Gyro, which consists of gyro meat, green peppers, onions, melted mozzarella cheese, and red peppers, I watched as the owner prepared the food in behind the counter.  It was served promptly, under 7 minutes, by an outgoing and welcoming waitress.

Grace Wermes, resident of West Chester, enjoyed The Buffalo Chicken Gyro and a side of crispy fries.  “The gyros are so good I could bathe in them,” jokingly says an enthusiastic Wermes.

The Athenian Restaurant is the perfect place to venture to when exploring new kinds of cuisine.  The service is quick and competent, and the atmosphere is quaint and relaxing.  “I like the quiet setting and it’s great food for a cheap price,” says Wermes.  For a large Diet Coke, a tasty gyro, and a crispy side of fries, one can fill up for under $8.00. For more information about The Athenian Restaurant, find the contacts below.

(513) 733-8482
10966 Reading Rd
Cincinnati, OH 45241

(Posted by Kara Driscoll.)

Past coverage of Jungle Jim’s International Food Market.

It’s hard to overemphasize the vastness of Jungle Jim’s, or the seemingly unlimited variety of foodstuffs available inside. Take one standard big-box grocery, add every corner market from here to Taipei, stir in a half-dozen specialty gourmet food stores and a generous helping of wine shops, and top with a walk-in humidor and state liquor store and you’ve pretty much served up Jungle Jim’s. The story covers more than 6 acres.

This is my favorite line:

You remember that one bottle of wine I found, after a year of search, at West Point Market? Jungle Jim’s had three cases, stacked up as if they were out-of-date Twinkies.

Previous coverage of Jungle Jim’s International Food Market.

More on Jungle Jim’s International Food Market.

Attractions:

• Aisle of Inferno
• Band on a Boat
• The Big Cheese
• Foodie Tram Monorail
• The Honey Table
• Jungle Scene
• Jungle Theater
• Live Fish Harvest
• The Olive Bar
• Robin Hood & Sherwood Forest
• Singing Characters
• Soup-Can Man
• The Port-O-Lets
• Tour the Jungle

“A full-size vending machine was converted graphically and functionally to dispense one-pound rolls of goetta,” Balasa said. “It’s the world’s only one.”

Goetta, a German dish, is often compared to breakfast sausage or scrapple. It is a unique, delicious and nutritious mixture of pork, beef, steel-cut (pinhead) oats, and seasonings.

Ohio and Money magazines featured stories about goetta in 2003, and late 2002, editors of highbrow foodie pub Saveur named goetta as one of their “100 Favorite Foods, Places and Things.” That’s pretty incredible considering those editors live in New York, and no doubt just learned to spell goetta. They probably still can’t say get-uh.

“There’s nothing like goetta anywhere in the world,” says Artie Kidwell, chairman of Goettafest. The foodstuff “is totally unique to Greater Cincinnati and just one particular area of Germany, up in its northeast quadrant.”

More from the Enquirer, CityBeat, and of course the Glier’s Goetta.