Zorba’s Greek Restaurant

Zorba’s Greek Restaurant (https://zorbasgreekfood.com/) is located at 115 East 1st Street, in the quaint, picturesque, historic section of Sanford, about half an hour north of downtown Orlando.  1st Street is lined with great restaurants (including the beloved Hollerbach’s German Restaurant, Christo’s diner, and the nearby St. Johns River Steak & Seafood), bars, breweries, and cute shops.  There is an excellent ice cream parlor (Wondermade, one of my two favorites in Central Florida) and a very cool new food hall, Henry’s Depot, which I recently visited for the first time and will definitely write about in the future.  There is a German grocery store (Magnolia Square Market, owned by the Hollerbach family), a shop that specializes in hot sauces and everything spicy (Spice is Nice, which I also plan to review), and a farmer’s market every Saturday.  It’s one of the most underrated foodie areas around, so I am thrilled to review another restaurant in the neighborhood that quickly became one of my new favorites.  In fact, after two visits, one for dining in and one for takeout, I might go out on a limb and call Zorba’s my favorite Greek restaurant in the Greater Orlando area.

Funny enough, my wife and I ended up there completely accidentally, after first driving to Sanford intending to go to Hollerbach’s on a day it turned out to be closed.  We had been passing Zorba’s for years, and since it is mere steps away, we went there instead, and were so glad we did.  We were hungry, so we did our usual over-ordering thing, knowing we would have plenty of delicious leftovers to last us for days, which would heat up well at home.

We started out with eggplant garlic spread, which came with warm,  soft, lightly grilled pita bread wedges for dipping and/or spreading.  I am relieved to report the pita bread was really good, because I hate the Toufayan brand of pita they sell at Publix, near the deli section. 

The eggplant garlic spread was savory and creamy, as the menu promised.  It was my wife’s idea to order it, but I think it was so garlicky, I ended up liking it more than she did.  But it was really awesome, and I would definitely recommend it as a nice starter.

She chose the octopus from the list of mezethakia, or Greek appetizers, to be her main course.  We all have our favorite dishes we can never turn down when we see them on menus, and octopus is one of hers.  You never know quite how restaurants are going to serve it, but Zorba’s served one large, marinated, char-grilled tentacle with tomatoes, kalamata olives, lemon, and some of the best feta cheese either of us have ever had.  I’ve had so much rubbery, chewy octopus that I don’t seek it out anymore the way she does, but she insisted I try it, and it was outstanding — easily some of the best I’ve ever tried anywhere.  Really meaty and flavorful, possibly from being tenderized by an acidic marinade that includes vinegar.  

Since my wife doesn’t cook, I suggested she order something else that she could eat over the next day or two, once I was back at work.  She chose papootsakia, which is really fun to say.  The menu describes it as half an eggplant stuffed with seasoned ground beef topped with creamy Bechamel sauce and baked, but as you can see, it looks like they served her a double portion!  This was another banger.  We both tasted cinnamon in the ground beef, and I suspected they use the same recipe for the moussaka (casserole with ground beef, eggplant, potatoes, and Bechamel) and some other dishes.  My wife named this one of the best things she has ever eaten in her life, and she doesn’t toss around superlatives as freely as your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner!Needless to say, the papootsakia (hehe) lasted her a few days, and like so many saucy, savory dishes, it kept tasting better and better after every day in the fridge.

Just like octopus and eggplant are two of my wife’s “trigger dishes” that she always feels compelled to try anywhere, slow-braised and stewed meats in sauces are one of mine.  I noticed Zorba’s offered a lamb shank and a pork shank, both braised and baked in a tomato sauce.  I had a hard time deciding between the two, but our patient server suggested I try the lamb shank for my first visit, and so I did.  This really is one of my favorite meals, period.  I loved the braised lamb shanks at Cappadocia Turkish Cuisine (and listed them as one of my Top Five favorite things I ate in 2018 in Orlando Weekly), and now I’m pretty great at making them myself, using this recipe.   Well, I’m happy to say that the lamb shank from Zorba’s is as good as any of the other versions I’ve tried or made, if not better.  The tomato sauce is so rich, it really puts it over the top.  The meat was fork-tender and so savory and flavorful.The rice pilaf was already soft and buttery, but I mixed all the tomato sauce I could into it, making it even better.

As if that wasn’t enough food, I ordered one of my favorite Greek dishes, pastitsio, which is kind of like Greek baked ziti or lasagna — a baked casserole with layers of seasoned ground beef (with more of that cinnamon) and long, uncut ziti noodles tossed in beaten egg whites and feta cheese after boiling to help the noodles stick together, topped with more creamy Bechamel that browns when baked.  It is a delicious, hearty dish that is different enough from the Italian versions that you absolutely have to try it, if you never have had it before.  And the pastitsio at Zorba’s is absolutely the best version I’ve ever had.  They knocked it out of the park.

It’s so pleasing to the eye too, when the chef gets all the ziti noodles facing the same way, so it creates that honeycomb-like pattern when slices are cut out of it.

All the entrees came with a choice of a lovely Greek salad tossed in a housemade viniagrette dressing with more of that terrific feta (so much better than the kind I’ve been buying at Aldi), or a soup.  The salad turned out to be a much more refreshing choice.

The soup was avgolemono, a hearty Greek chicken soup with orzo pasta and lemon.  We wanted to try both the salad and the soup, but it’s just too blasted hot to enjoy most soups, here in the hottest summer recorded in human history.

The entrees all come with fresh-baked rolls studded with sesame seeds.  It seems like an unnecessary inclusion, but these are really damn good rolls, especially when you have such delicious sauces and juices to mop up.  Don’t leave them behind!

And my wife said we couldn’t leave without trying the baklava for dessert, so who was I to argue?  It was good baklava, although I have never had bad baklava.

Here’s a look at it with the thin, crispy phyllo dough “roof” removed:

On my second visit to Zorba’s, this past weekend, I brought home the lamb chop lollipops for my wife.  I asked for them rare, but they came out closer to medium.  These are a lot thinner than the thick lamb loin chops I buy at Costco for roasting, so it was probably harder to rescue these while they were still rare.  These were served over more rice pilaf and dressed salad greens.

Since I liked the lamb shank so much last time, this time I ordered the pork shank, which was an even bigger hunk of meat with the bones still in.  Like the lamb shank, it was baked to fork-tender perfection in the same rich tomato sauce, over more rice pilaf.  I didn’t even eat this until the day after I brought everything home, but I suspect it got even tastier in the fridge overnight.   No matter which shank you choose, you can’t go wrong.   Zorba’s prepared both perfectly.   

I could not help ordering a regular gyro for us to share, just to see how Zorba’s stacks up to other gyros around Orlando.  It was really good, with the garlicky, salty lamb slices still tender (some places throw them on the grill after carving them off the spit, drying them out), nice, thick, creamy, garlicky tzatziki sauce, and a properly grilled pita.  If you’re in the mood for a gyro in Sanford, you absolutely can’t go wrong.  BUT — and this is not a complaint about the quality at all — nobody in the Orlando area makes a better gyro than Mediterranean Deli on Fairbanks Avenue.  If they do, I haven’t found it yet.

So that’s Zorba’s Greek Restaurant.  If Sanford wasn’t such a schlep from home, we would become regulars for sure.  As it is, I’ll still make the trek to bring it home when we’re in the mood, because it is that damn good.  You can tell everything is homemade, fresh, and authentic.  The service was great when we dined in, and it’s a nice little spot that would be fine for  casual family dining, but nice enough to bring a date.  There are so many great dining options in Sanford these days, but this is one that may not be as new or exciting or “sexy” as some of the other restaurants along 1st Street.  Don’t sleep on it, though.  It was one of our favorite discoveries of 2023, and it will probably become one of yours too.