Greek Food Festival hits the spot

By Aida Ahmed

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011 | 9:10 p.m.

Opa! for baklava, gyros, Greek salad and more.

The Greek Food Festival was well under way Saturday night, a gathering of food, song and dance. The 39th annual celebration, held at the St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, drew hundreds of people with a promise of an assortment of authentic Greek dishes.

Greek-American Paul Metaxas, who has attended the festival for the last two years, said the food at the festival is always good. This year, he and two friends came to try the gyros and Greek fries.

“It’s like homemade American Greek food,” said Metaxas. “You come here and it changes a little bit, but it’s good.

Guests were welcome to try a genuine Greek dinner, complete with rice pilaf, Greek salad, dolmathes, pastitso, Greek olives and feta cheese.

Niki McKay said the dinner was great but the deserts were even better.

“We had like seven different types of baklava,” McKay said. “The bougatsa was the best. The flavoring was good, although you can never have bad baklava.”

Besides sampling the food, amid a breeze of Greek incense, people browsed through religious books, hand-made Greek jewelry and artwork. Several visitors also got a tour of the Byzantine church.

And culture was the centerpiece of not only food and art, but of the music too. Guests were encouraged to get up and try dancing to live Greek folk music, an invitation Priscilla Streisand accepted.

Streisand, who frequents cultural festivals in the valley, said she didn’t know the dance or the words to the songs, but she had fun dancing anyway.

The Greek Food Festival continues from noon to 10 p.m. Sunday at the St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, 5300 El Camino Road. Tickets are $6 for adults, and children 12 and under are free.