Honey Lavender and Salted Caramel Ice Cream

On a weekday evening, Las Margaritas was pretty crowded with diners but we were seated quickly by the hostess.

While waiting for our food, we were given a basket of complimentary tortilla chips with salsa. I liked these chips a lot because they seemed to be freshly fried and the salsa was a good consistency.

Salsa and chips

Cantina Platter: mini chimis, flour chicken flauta, chicken wings, cheese quesadilla, jalapeno peppers, chilima sauce, chipotle dip

This was a shared appetizer platter for two and filled us up well. All the items came hot but started to taste similar after awhile because there was a lot of fried tortilla. I didn't prefer the cheese quesadilla much because it was very plain without dip and the chicken wings were a bit overfried.

Cantina Platter

Fish Tacos: Each taco had two pieces of tortilla holding a piece of fried fish with beans and salad on the side. I really like fish tacos and have ordered them at many restaurants before. This one tasted good but definitely not the best I've had. There wasn't much flavour to the fish.

Fish Tacos

Overall, it was a solid meal at Las Margaritas albeit not very memorable food.

Maria's Taverna was a fairly easy location to get to by transit. The small restaurant was still filled with diners for Dine Out Vancouver when we arrived at 8pm on a Thursday night.

We opted for the Dine Out menu as well. We ended up having to go up to the cash register area to request for a server to take our order. I guess they were too busy to notice.

Homous & Pita

For my appetizer, I chose the Avgolemono (chicken, egg and lemon soup). It was extremely salty and a little tangy from the lemon juice.

Avgolemono

Kleftiko: tender roasted lamb, served with rice, roasted potatoes, Greek salad

Like the soup, my main course was also extremely salty. The roasted potatoes were especially salty. I was impressed with the large portion size of the lamb which was very tender and good.

Kleftiko

Maria's  Special Ekmek: three layer traditional dessert with custard, nuts, cinnamon

In contrast with the salty dishes, this dessert was very sweet! The sponge cake bottom was absolutely drenched in sugary syrup. The custard was firm and jello-like.

Ekmek

Overall, Maria's Taverna is for those whose tastebuds can accept a large range from very salty to very sweet.