Dining Out- A totally greek experience

One of the Edmonton restaurants I have been eager to try is Koutouki - yes the one featured on the "Family Restaurant" on the Food Network. I have to admit that I didn't have high hopes for the place. After a year or two most "celebrity" restaurants seem unable to keep up the high level of service that made them famous in the first place. Nevertheless, I made my reservation for a Saturday night.
To start off, we arrived 25 minutes early for our reservation and were greeted by a huge lineup of people pouring out the front doors. I did my best to squeeze past them to speak to the Hostess (who is also the manager) and was thrilled to find out that they could seat us right away (ignoring the angry glares from the still-waiting customers). We were given a tiny little table in a busy little nook (not that there were any sections that weren't busy). The atmosphere was great. Loud traditional Greek music was blaring, candles covered all the table tops, and creeper vines crawled from pot to pot over our heads. Yianni the owner was doing his rounds. Our excitement was brewing.
We took no time at all to decide that we were both going to have: the Meze sampler, a meal with over a dozen different dishes, for the measly cost of $32 a person. There was no question about which wine to have: Retsina is the only choice for a Greek meal. It took a little while for the server to take our order and bring the wine but it helped to build our anticipation for the meal to come.
First course was traditional Greek salad, pita bread with hummus, tzatziki, eggplant dip and a jalapeno feta dip. We were so hungry by this point that we were literally scarfing the food down. We were also thrilled to discover how much better our acidic Retsina tasted with what we were eating.
I was impressed by the calamari that followed. I consider myself a bit of a calamari connoisseur and it definitely met my standards. Lamb dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) and some yummy Greek meat balls came next. By this point I was already stuffed and couldn't believe there were more courses to follow. Soon there were the best Spanikopitas I have ever had, perfectly browned and flaky on the outside, perfectly seasoned on the inside. Next came chicken with rice. I was already as full as I could be so I tasted my chicken (which was wonderfully moist) and pushed the rest of it across the table for my boyfriend to finish up. I edged my plate and cutlery towards the side of the table for the server to take away, and was promptly informed that the meal wasn't over. There was still a lamb and potato course. So we ordered another bottle of wine which arrived at the same time as the belly dancer. The music was turned right up and she danced her way through the restaurant, encouraging people to join her in a hip-wiggling show down to earn a shot of Ouzo, poured straight out of the bottle down the guest's eager throat. Even I danced. Needless to say, it really added to the atmosphere, as did the table dancing, plate breaking, and chain of guests dancing shoulder to shoulder in a parade through the kitchen. When the lamb arrived I could do little more than try it (and it's intensely flavoured lemon-potato companion). It was an obscenely huge portion which thrilled my boyfriend as he polished it off, along with the rest of the Retsina. And to polish off the fabulous meal the manager came around the restaurant with free shots of Ouzo for everyone. By the end of the evening we had a bill of about $150, but I couldn't imagine a better way to spend the money. We were so full we could hardly move, but we were already making plans for when we would be eating there again.