Home > Bars & Clubs > Restaurant Review > You're broke. Eat here.

You're broke. Eat here.

Make yourself at home at Eastern House

By Lisa Wiseman

Special to Metromix
February 5, 2008

Critic's Rating:

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From its humble beginnings as a small lunchroom to its present incarnation as a full-service restaurant and bar, Eastern House has fed Highlandtown's hungry for more than 40 years. It seems that little has changed over the last few decades, as evidenced by Eastern House's dining room, which might remind you of Granny's house. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you don't want hip and happening when you're dining. There's only so much smooth, blond wood and brushed aluminum a person can take.
 
What Eastern House offers is a down-home meal in a place that will likely remind you of home. Not necessarily yours, though, since you couldn't identify an oven save the microwave variety, and finding your way into the dining room would take a miracle of Google Maps. Inside Eastern House, antique beaded lamps hang above the bar, a curio shelf holds porcelain figurines and flowered wallpaper decorates the walls.

Owned and operated by the Antonas family, much of the menu at Eastern House skews Greek. Specialties include moussaka, pastitsio and stuffed grape leaves. Italian dishes are also popular, and sirloin steak, pork chops, meatloaf and liver and onions are also available. The restaurant has daily lunch specials and breakfast choices include creamed chip beef on toast and omelets. Those looking to dine for a bargain should check out the nightly dinner specials. Stop by to try lobster stuffed with crab imperial for $15.95 on Monday and Friday nights, veal scaloppini for $9.95 on Wednesdays or prime rib for $14.95 on Saturdays.
 
Dish: The meal started out with crab soup and a basket full of soft dinner rolls served hot and fresh. The crab soup was stocked with veggies and bits of crab meat along with scraps of what appeared to be beef. Now, some people claim that good crab soup should have some meat in it to enhance its overall flavor. We're not those people.
 
One of us was a strict vegetarian. Luckily, so was the waitress, who had several recommendations from the meat-heavy menu. Her favorites were the Greek salad and the grilled cheese sandwich. Instead, the vegetarian was tempted by Eastern House's large variety of side dishes and vegetable choices and opted to make a meal out of five sides, including homemade mashed potatoes and Greek-style string beans in a tangy tomato sauce. The restaurant considerately assembled all of the sides on one big plate instead of bringing out five little dishes. It looked great except for the pool of brown gravy on the mashed potatoes—which comes standard in a place like this. After the vegetarian recoiled in horror, the waitress apologized and quickly replaced the entire plate. Other meal choices included a huge platter of what Eastern House calls its "peasant salad" which is basically a standard Greek salad with chunks of cooked potato replacing the lettuce—it's big enough for two.
 
Make sure you save room for dessert as the homemade pies do not disappoint. Coconut custard pie was smooth and creamy and the top of the lemon meringue was so pretty it seemed a crime to eat it. Somehow, we managed.
 
Damage: Soup, the selection of side dishes, the peasant salad, two slices of pie, soda, tea and coffee came to a respectable $25, with leftovers to take home.
 
Decision: The friendly service and atmosphere alone makes Eastern House worth the trip to Highlandtown. Pair that with the good food and reasonable prices and you've got a winner.