uncle nick's gives greek a bad name

so we defaulted to Uncle Nick's in hell's kitchen (the restaurant proper and not the ouzaria) for our group of 8 which shrank to 6. I had caught dessert there last year and it was actually quite good (galactaburekos on point, greek yogurt with honey and walnuts delicious) but never for dinner. ended up having for the table a selection of cold dips (tasting straight out the Sabra container, which is a complement to Sabra), a large greek salad (absolutely delicious), a couple orders of beef kebabs, and a couple orders of the gyro and pork souvlaki platter. I saw a few orders of ribs on the way in and upon asking what looked like a satisfied diner how his ribs were, he replied that his wife's stuffed cabbage was much better; he ate the whole things just to eat it. great.

the beef kebabs were tough as soft pine, maybe 2-1/2" cubes of gray beef that were basically ready to be braised the next day had we taken home the leftovers (some of us did). the gyro was generically street, if not overdone, and the pork souvlaki was probably the highlight meat. did we order a whole roasted fish? no. did we order the flaming saganaki? yes. does anyone care? not really; the place was bad.

the problem is, where are the casual greek places? Snack in the village is aight (much more homestyle), Gus' Place is aight, most of the other gyro joints (Karavas, anyone? We call that place the "deadtime" bar since its where we just kill time; the food is forgettable.) in manhattan are terrible, and then your alternative is all these goddamn michael psilakis places (he gets more play than david chang in the new york food media) which have dishes like "deconstructed" moussaka. come on now, I want my wanna-be-lasagna in one square at least. some of the other high-end places are good , but if that's the case, then I'd rather head out to Astoria or even Bayside.

anyway, bottom line: uncle nick's sucks.