This Town In FLORIDA Is a FOOD GEM (Best Greek Food?)

Third time here. It's just an impressive take. I've never seen it before. We're doing back and forth. Wait. Wow. Greeks do love lemons. Florida. Oh, I love the garlic sauce. It's kind of interesting to be eating different types of seafood. Am I crazy? The grill plate. This looks crazy. This is the best Greek food you can eat in America. Forget South Beach. Forget Disney. If you're looking for one of the most unique food destinations of Florida, you might have to head to a little sponge dive in town with a surprisingly deep Greek soul. Tarpon Springs has been quietly serving up some of the best Greek food in America for generations. And today, I'm going into the bakeries, restaurants, local institutions. I have some of the best Greek food I've ever had in my life. Some dishes I've never had before. And it's just unlike any other state. And maybe throughout the video, I even explain why I'm there in the first place. So hit that like button and leave a comment. All right. One thing about driving in Florida is that the roads are pretty big and there's really only traffic going down one way. I've just eaten a couple of snacks, one Slim Jim at the airport, one mini kind bar. And that was pretty much it. Then I tasted a bunch of mayonnaise because I'm doing a small on mayo. All right, everybody. This restaurant that I'm going to right now is called Jimmy's Neighborhood Restaurant. And it came as a very, very high recommendation from a local. And she said, you have to go to Jimmy's. You have to. She did not tell me what to order, but Jimmy's is apparently a Greek and Italian restaurant. So it combines two very good and close neighboring cultures. Perhaps maybe one person of the family is Italian. One person's Greek. Who knows? But anyways, I'm going to Jimmy's. Tarpon Springs. Let's see what you got. Florida. Florida. All right, everybody. We pulled up onto Gulf Road out in Tarpon Springs. There's an elementary right down the street, gas station, kind of residential. Some nice houses, some older houses. But anyways, right behind me is Jimmy's Neighborhood Restaurant. It does look very neighborhood-y, but I heard a lot of good things. All right, I just pulled up. It's very neighborhood-y. There's all these pictures on the wall of people from different baseball teams. And there's the word family everywhere. So they really want the family to come here. But the portions look huge. They have the dinner specials here. It's a mixture of Greek and Italian. They have some pizzas. They have grouper plak. All right, everybody. I ordered a fat amount of food, man. But the portions are big. Right now I got to try the fresh Italian or Greek style bread. They have a olive oil dip here. I'm not going to fill up too much on bread, though. But they make their dip fresh. It's got a lot of different peppers and things in it. I like that. I like that. Let's go. I even have my smalla sauce with me, so I might try that, too. Nice pop of salt, seeds. Oh, that's good. Okay, next up, I was told to get the clam chowder. This came with the meal. She said it's a New England style. I'm going to taste it first. Oh, that's pretty good. Quite salty, though. Good, but salty. Smalla sauce. Just a little bit. Not to disrespect. Oh, just a little bit. That adds that pop right there. That kick. All right, you guys are about to see me try my smalla mayo beta testing sauce right here. I'm going to try it on some of the bread. Of course, I'm going to say it's good, but how good? It's good. Anyways, I'm working on this, as you can see. The octopus is here. You guys got to check this out. Two long tentacles, grilled. Check this out. Oh, that's a macro shot right there. I can't wait to eat these ends. Okay, you got the nice lemon. You have kind of an olive oil. Let me taste this, man. What is this sauce? This is a cool appetizer dish, okay? The octopus is hot. What's cool about this spot is it really blends the kind of Greek history of Tarpon Springs, which a lot of Greek immigrants came here as sponge divers, literally diving for sponges back when that was a big industry. And this also mixes like pizza shop vibes, kind of like your Florida grouper vibes, some southern fried food vibes. So it's really, it's not even a fully authentic Greek restaurant where they're trying to transport you to Greece or one of those islands off of Greece. They're just trying to kind of bring everything that Tarpon Springs is, Florida, in with Greece. Oh, the tentacle is delicious. Look at that. See that dripping? That's grilled nicely, guys. So this was $17 for this. This was about $29 in season. So this is a fresh grouper. It's a grouper fish that's stuffed with shrimp, scallops, and crab, and kind of has like this creamy hollandaise sauce right here. I'll bust it open for you guys. Wow. This is a kind of like Florida dish. This is not the Greek side. This is just the Florida grouper side, you know, and then you have this nice orange slice here. Look, you have scallops, you got a little shrimps, you got some crab meat, all in this creamy sauce. And then you have lemon potatoes. This is the Greek lemon potatoes right here. Look at this. Wow. Stuffed very lemony, creamy. That's nice. Might try this piece of octopus in the grouper sauce. That was pretty good too. Try a little bit of salmon. It's kind of interesting to be eating different types of seafood that have different textures and tastes in one bite. It's like the scallops are super bouncy. Wow. Wow. Wow. That was a cool spot to start off at because it was very Florida and it was like mixing the Greek and the real like Florida style, you know, it wasn't just fully a Greek restaurant, but I am going to go to a fully Greek restaurant very soon. But man, Jimmy's was good, man. I can see why people like it. You can get a little bit of everything. I didn't even get to try the pizza, the calzones, which everybody liked, but I had to get the octopus in the grouper, man. I gotta get, I gotta get seafood out here, you know? So anyways, guys, Jimmy's, if you ever come to this part, I think it's, I think it's worth checking out. This is Arak. This is Ouzo. These are Greek alcohols. This one's a very, very heavy in the licorice. That was like, yeah, liquid licorice. Wow. Not a bit of sugar. It's not, it's not horrible. It's not horrible. I think I'm getting them mixed up. We're doing back and forth. Wait, Ouzo. Okay. Rob, that was Ouzo? Which one's sweeter? Ouzo is here. Arak is here. Ouzo is more of a sweeter. Am I crazy? Yes. That's Ouzo in the restaurant. This is Ouzo. I thought this one was easier. Acropolis has the most honest workers here. Thank you. Like it's so honest, it's comedy. Thank you. We have a tzatziki, we have hummus, and then we have some other stuff, feta cheese and some grape leaves and some hot. Caitlin, you're a local here, huh? I am. All right. Tell me what it's like growing up in Tarpon Springs. What are you like? Oh no, you didn't grow up in Tarpon, but you grew up all around different places. Why do you know Tarpon so well? What are some nice things you would like to say about Tarpon Springs? The community is fabulous. As you can tell, they try to feed you a lot of food. Everybody treats you like family and they welcome you in. You know, there's no problem. Nice. Love. Tirra Salata. Oh yeah. Okay. My personal favorite. Kevin. Wow. Love. It's really good. Love. The smoky bottle ganoush with the feta. With the feta. You're combining. Okay, let me try. Please try. I'm going to try the tzatziki since you didn't go there. Oh, are you mad because I went in the middle? I mean, it's just an impressive take. I've never seen this before, but I guess I have to leave. Why are you being mad? It's just dips. Yeah, it's just dips. It's all family. Like, we're just family style, you know? I'm trying to be like you, delicious. Opa. Salud. Gambe. Gambe. Oh baby, you smell so good. You look just, you look beautiful right now. And I just, I just can't really wait for. Oh, hey. Sorry. I was just tending to my large vat of smalla chili oil. Anyways, let me show you the factory that it's made in. Highest quality in America. FDA approved factory, state-of-the-art machinery, and not to mention, they hire really, really nice employees. See, look how happy he is. So at this point, I should probably tell you something that I've been holding in. Smalla Sauce is now at 270 HEB locations across Texas. For those who are not from Texas, that's like if Wegmans and Trader Joe's had Texas pride, which is honestly pretty surreal to say it out loud. See, three years ago, Smalla was just an idea. And now I'm standing here watching our biggest production run yet, knowing that these bottles are headed to shelves all across Texas, from Houston to Dallas to Austin, San Antonio, and all the way down to the Rio Grande Valley. If you supported Smalla at this point, I mean, whether you bought a bottle, left a review, shared it with a friend, or just followed along online, thank you. Seriously, you helped make this happen. And if you live anywhere in Texas, or have friends in Texas, or an ex in Texas, this is the part where I stop being humble and I start being direct. Please go to HEB and buy Smalla. Then tell your Texas friends to do it too. Because these next 90 days are crucial. The more you show up for Smalla right now, the better chance we have of getting a bigger reorder from HEB and being in more stores nationwide. Obviously, I hope you like the product. Buy it if you're interested, but please check it out at HEB right now. It is literally now. And I'm going to Texas soon to go film a bunch of content too. So, you know, Texas has always had a special place in the Fung Bros heart. We've been there many, many times. And yeah, anyways, back to the video. All right, everybody. My next spot in Tarpon Springs is Nico's Grillhouse. I'm looking to get a lot of protein and meat here. It came as a recommendation from the guys that I'm working with who live in Tarpon Springs and they're Greek and Italian. So he was highly recommended Nico's Grillhouse. I'm really excited. I'm really hungry too. This is the first meal of my day today. So let's grow. Best of the best. You agree? Yeah. This is the best Greek food you can eat in America. You heard it from the man himself. The best Greek food you can find in America at Nico's Grillhouse. John, you're Greek and Italian, right? Oh yeah. So can you tell me about this dish right here? Well, this is some grilled mushrooms, feta, imported from Greece. Got Kalamata olives. Okay. We got feta imported from Greece. Kalamata olives. Pepper and cheese. Pepperoncinis. Grease. Tomatoes from the best state, Florida. Okay. Tomatoes from Florida. We got some tzatziki sauce. Tzatziki sauce. Okay. Man, that's house-made. That's house-made tzatziki. Toasted bread. Of course, you got the seasoned olive oil here. I saw that. Something similar at Jimmy's and these are the mushrooms. You smell great. A lot of nice little oil on them. Spices. So this has a little bit of spice on it. Do you know what type of mushrooms these are? I don't. Wow. All right. Here we got the Greek salad. House-made tzatziki. Not as much like green and cucumber stuck in there. I kind of like the sauces that you would see, but Florida tomatoes. Oh, beautiful. Wow. Those tomatoes are good. That is not the tzatziki sauce you get at Trader Joe's. So we have a grilled herring. It smells smoked. Smoked herring. It's smoked herring. All right. Mmm. A lot of flavor. Great smoked flavor. Olive oil drizzle. Let me eat it with my salad here. Altogether, when you eat it with the tzatziki with it, that's fire. Wow. The amazing Nikko's mushroom, but with smalah. Let's try it. There's like a really interesting effect that happens. Like because there's that super citrus pop and then there's kind of like that smooth spicy oil. It's pretty good. This looks like a kind of like mashed tomato. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Mmm. That's nice. I like the crushed tomatoes. Really fresh. Great Florida tomatoes right here. Let me try us. Let me try some smalah and tzatziki sauce. Let's get some freaky with tzatziki. Whoa. Smalah tzatziki is interesting. Tzatziki is very cool. We got some pita bread here. Okay. We got fries. We got chicken subaki. We got chicken wrapped in bacon. We got pork subaki. We got pork gyro. We got beef steakies. Beef steakies. We got every single kind of meat they have here. So beef steakies. You got pork. You got chicken. Your carbs. You got your fresh fries. You have your pita bread. Oh I love the garlic sauce. And then you have. So you have two types of chicken here. Oh yeah. Because you got. Oh you have bacon wrapped chicken. Then you have the chicken subaki which is the kind of chopped up chicken. You got chicken over here. That's chicken kebab. Chicken kebab. Then you have rotisserie chicken down there. Dang. Hey good to see you. Good to see you. Good meeting you. Mmm. That bacon. Yeah you got to be here tomorrow. It's crispy. It's called Greek This is the pork. I never had Greek pork before. Assembling my little pizza. All right everybody. That's it for lunch at the Nikko's Grillhouse. Man I would say if you're looking to get your macros in, get that big plate. That's another meal in Tarpon Springs. All right everybody. It is 9 p.m. and we're over by the sponge docks and there is one restaurant that I have to go to before I leave and it is called Mykonos. It is 9 p.m. They close at 10 and it's one of the top rated restaurants in all of the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs. Let's go. Okay we're here at Mykonos. I got the seafood platter coming. Go big or go home. Here is the lemon chicken soup. Look how much chicken and I think there's orzo in here. Like a little bit of that kind of like rice looking Italian thing. Greek thing. Let me try some of this. Wow. A refreshing soup. I got the bread here buttered up. Let's go. Wow. Greeks do love lemons. All right everybody. Piping hot off the grill. The grill plate. This looks crazy. Look at that steam coming off. Look at the shrimp. Look at how much the calamari. The grilled calamari. Oh my god. The grill flavor is crazy. Oh we have octopus here. Oh my gosh. Char-broiled octopus right here. This is so good. I'm so excited. This is like a whole seafood plate. I'm ready to get into it and you have of course the Greek lemon potatoes. I'm just going to try this shrimp real quick. Let me just try the octopus for you guys. I'm going to take the meaty part. Sometimes I like the tentacles because it's all crispy. Octopus here at Mykonos. Damn that's so soft. That was totally sous vide and then grilled. I'm going to be straight up and honest guys. Mykonos was one of the best meals I had here. It's open kind of late for Tarpon Springs. Closes at like 10. The char-broiled flavor is unmatched. I've never had a plate of seafood that was so charred and it had so much flavor. Mixing it with the lemon dip and the lemon soup and then with the olive oil dip. Alright everybody's looking at me. We're gonna leave soon but it was really good. Don't worry. You got you got a good word from me. That's it. Go to Hela's bakery. Hela's. Look at this. The savarin. The sponge cake. Oh my gosh. That looks so good. I know that I have to get a baklava cheesecake. I'm probably going to eat that before I go or at least eat part of it and then eat the rest at the airport. It's going to be heavy. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. Can I even bring it back home? Can I bring it on the plane? Is it a good idea? Is everything going to melt and get smashed on the plane? I don't know. I got some baklavas and I got some cookies from my friends in New York but I got to try this baklava cheesecake. This is first and foremost. I actually remember a long time ago me and David were actually at this restaurant next door. We were filming our tv show. If you guys remember our tv show Girl Fights What The Fun. We actually came to Tarpon Springs and I totally forgot until I walked into this restaurant and I was like wait have I been here before? Is this another restaurant that looks like this in Tampa? So we actually traveled here from Tampa Bay. Take a look at that. Crazy. Layers. Baklava. I don't know what else is on the bottom That's really good. A lot of cinnamon, a lot of sugar, a lot of honey. Damn am I going to eat this whole thing right now before I go to the plane? It might not really melt per se but it's going to get so soft and get warm and it's like I'm not going to want to eat it then. All right everybody I knew I stood no chance without the milk. I didn't just get milk. I got milk with ice in it because it's super hot outside. Oh that's so good. I think I can actually finish this whole cheesecake if I want to. If I want to feel that way about myself later because I don't usually dig into sweets that much. I mean I would already be done with my dessert. Three, four bites that's it. Then I just drink a lot of milk which is good because I feel like I got stronger for it. Third time here. Don't make me come back. It's like I probably will come back because I come here for work now. All right everybody I'm going back to New York. Maybe I'll see you at the airport. Tarpon Springs ended up being a lot more than just a food trip for me. I actually came down here to work on something behind the scenes that I might not be quite ready to share yet but maybe I said that throughout the video. I don't remember but spending time here gave me a whole new appreciation for this town. Between the Greek culture, the local businesses, and the food it might be one of the most unique places in Florida. Big shout out to all the fun people that I met along the way that welcomed me and share their stories. Keep an eye out. There's a good chance this won't be the last time you see me in Tarpon Springs but thanks for watching and until next time I'm out. Peace.