Choose your pie before you take a seat at Voula’s Good Eats

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — “There she is” was the repeated phrase as customers entered the dining area during our recent visit to Voula’s Good Eats.

“She” is Voula Athan, who along with her husband, Bill, owned and operated Leena’s Kitchen in Shoreline. The couple, who immigrated from Greece in 1966, turned that restaurant over to their son, Nick, last summer, and opened their new place about six weeks ago. Herald readers who didn’t dine at Leena’s might remember the Athans from Val’s Cafe, which was in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood, or from Mr. T’s on Aurora Avenue N., or the Edmonds Cafe.

Voula’s Good Eats, which is managed by the couple’s other sons, Stanley and Dimitri, has a lovely open, airy dining area with a fireplace in the center. But the most attractive part is the pie case just inside the door near the hostess area. Beautifully browned crusts and fluffy puffs of whipped cream top the cream- and fruit-filled pies ($3.25 to $3.45 a slice). Before we had a seat, even though we didn’t have to wait for one, my friend and I decided on strawberry-rhubarb pie.

The dinner menu has many of the choices from Leena’s — home-breaded grilled pork chops, breaded veal cutlet and liver and onions with bacon — along with Greek favorites including slouvlaki (skewers of meat) and horiatiki salad made with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and green bell peppers with feta cheese. There are also pasta dishes ($10.95 for any dinner). The eight burgers cost $5.95 to $8.95, and there are five main-dish salads ($10.95 to $13.95).

The breakfast menu has all our favorites: omelets, pancakes and French toast combos ($5.95 to $9.95). And lunch includes sandwiches, subs plus fish and chips ($6.95 to $8.95). The Greek influence is visible here, too, with a chicken gyro and skewers on pita.

For our Saturday dinners, my friend ordered the baked spaghetti with a side salad and garlic toast plus his choice for dessert for $10.95. No wonder this place is popular with the frugal ones. The nightly special was grilled halibut with a choice of potato and vegetable beef soup or salad plus dessert for $16.95. I made a lunch sandwich — grilled chicken with tzatziki sauce, lettuce and tomatoes on pita bread — my dinner by adding a side salad and dessert.

My friend’s baked spaghetti was served too hot to eat, but once it cooled a little, it was a yummy combination of pasta, delicious sauce accented with cinnamon and just the right amount of mozzarella cheese. My sandwich’s chicken was marinated in olive oil spiced with oregano, onions, lemon and garlic, and then grilled. It was just as good as it sounds. The pita bread was fresh and the yogurt-cucumber sauce on the tomato slices was excellent. But the sandwich needed more crunch. Some crisp lettuce would have been an easy solution.

At the same time, our salads were made with crisp, no-nonsense iceberg lettuce and carrot strips, making the salad plain. It needed chopped tomatoes, some cucumber slices and a couple of Greek olives. The menu tells us all these ingredients are in the kitchen so my friend and I didn’t understand why the finishing touches weren’t there.

Maybe it’s tradition.

The Athans built Leena’s popularity on no-nonsense meals made from the basics. It’s a favorite with the Depression era crowd, and it was obvious that many customers from Shoreline had traveled to Mountlake Terrace for dinner the night we visited.

Herald restaurant reviewers accept no invitations to review, but readers’ suggestions are always welcome. Reviewers arrive unannounced, and The Herald pays their tabs.

Contact Anna Poole at features@heraldnet.com.