Restaurant: Agape Grill
City: Sunnyvale, CA

Had Greek for an early dinner tonight! There were so many appetizers to choose from, so I just picked one that seemed to be popular on Yelp.

Biftekia – mixed ground beef, garlic, onion, spices, herbs, served with tzatziki (grated cucumber in yogurt garlic sauce, herbs, and spices) and Agape sauce (kalamata olives blended with mayo, olive oil, and garlic), and served over garlic fries. Feta cheese cubes, olives, pepperoncini, and a lemon wedge were also on the plate.

Biftekia (μπεφτεκια) is also known as “Greek beef patties” and is typically served with a pat of butter and a generous squeeze of lemon. One of the ingredients is bread, which is soaked with milk or water, then squeezed to remove all the excess liquid, and ripped into pieces to the meat mixture to make it more tender. (Mama’s Taverna)

I thought the biftekia I was served was a bit dry, but eating it with the sauce or feta cheese helped. It appears that some recipes don’t even use bread, such this one from Food Network. There’s also a variation called biftekia yemista, where the beef patties are stuffed with feta.