Relish: Great hours, underwhelmng food at One's A Meal

By Dan Nelson     9/23/10 7:00pm

Sunday night, Dan's laptop charger suddenly died, and he was reduced to tears. In order to cheer him up, Siegfried offered him a meal on the Thresher's dollar at One's A Meal, a local 24-hour Greek diner at Westheimer Road and Montrose Boulevard.Since we're both too fabulously wealthy to drive our own cars, we had our driver Peter bring us to One's A Meal around midnight on Sunday. Or Monday. We're not totally sure. Like our uncertainty about how time works, we're also pretty ambivalent about returning to One's A Meal. While not particularly remarkable or desirable, the food was also edible and available at ?weird hours.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by our hostess, who happened to be our waitress as well. As we were led to our table, we felt like we had just entered a local mafia hangout, giving the place the feel of an episode of "The Sopranos" in an alternate universe where the Sopranos are Greek. The clientele is pretty much what you would expect to show up to a restaurant at 2 a.m., minus the usual drunks. One's A Meal is a bit too subdued for the sort of antics that chemically altered Rice students like to unleash on Taco Cabana anyway.

Right after we sat down, the busboy brought us some complimentary sesame breadsticks with a sharp yet satisfying mushroom marinara sauce. As if these excellent breadsticks weren't enough, we also ordered the Saganaki as an appetizer, mainly because it was described as goat cheese on fire. We were devastated when, upon its delivery to our table, the Saganaki was actually not on fire. Dan started crying again. However, the dish did come with excellent, freshly baked pitas in typical Mediterranean style. The goat cheese was also tasty yet weaker than anticipated. Maybe if the cheese had been more on fire, the flavor would have been more intense ?and delicious.

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For the main course, Dan ordered the Kotopita, and Siegfried ordered the Dolmades. Both came with a Kroger-esque side salad, which was as forgettable as a side salad could be. The Kotopita consisted of a flaky pita crust, filled with peppery mashed chicken and onions. It was a bit bland, although some tzatziki sauce livened things up. The Dolmades were five large grape leaves stuffed with lightly seasoned ground beef and covered in a rather boring lemon egg sauce. The entrees illustrated the general trend of One's A Meal: as uninteresting as a drawn-out conversation with that rando in a Rice athletics T-shirt in STAT class.

Our driver Peter had managed to order a gyros sandwich, by far the tastiest food that we encountered at One's A Meal. However, as he is our servant, we stole the sandwich from him, as well as his fries and wallet. Siegfried kept saying throughout the meal, "Niko Niko's gyros are better," with each mention of the word "gyro" sparking debate about how the hell you actually pronounce "gyro."

Service was prompt to the point where we felt the waitress was rushing us a little. However, we always had glasses filled with water, which is good, considering most people need water to live. Siegfried learned this lesson recently through a poor attempt to fast on Yom Kippur. Dan, as a goy, had to be reminded to drink water throughout the course of the meal. Food was brought to our table quickly, and we were in and out in less than an hour.

While our initial impressions were positive, everything at One's A Meal got gradually worse as time went on, averaging out to a mediocre, boring evening. Still, if you want to get your gyro on at 3:30 a.m., you don't really ?have a choice.

Dan Nelson and Siegfried Bilstein are Wiess College seniors.

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