Dmitri's

There are those lawyers who succor suckers, and others less succumbed by them, who decline grilled octopus appendages peremptorily as if they were the limbs of an octogenarian juror with psoriasis. Dmitri's Grilled Octopus appetizer ($8) is tenderized, oiled, dipped in wine vinegar, parsleyed, and then crisped to a char on an open grill. A call to arms.

The Mediterranean Plate combination ($12) is the best starter for two, even if gluttonous. With doughy bread chunks, piles of pita and bowls of seasoned olive oil, this could be your main meal. It's difficult to imagine the mélange of mounds of tarama salada, baba ghanoush, huge purplish beets, hummus, tzatziki and skordalia. Nibble, nuzzle, nudge, nosh, nip, nod, note and gnarl.

Your tongue whirls in frenzied felicity as tastes appear, disappear and reinvent themselves in calculated combinations. The beets add a brisk bite; the hummus provides a warm coating of garlic; and the ghanoush is redolent of grainy, gooey eggplant. There is no cheaper carnival ride on a cornucopia.

Grilled Lamb ($14) could only be a better bargain if the waitstaff had sheared it and knitted you a sweater while its chops were being cooked. The lamb is molten pink at its center, turning browner toward the edges and dark at the bone. No need for fork and knife. The lamb-mignons separate at a quiver of teeth, causing a gush of juice that your tongue must shepherd.

If you have nothing else, try the Grilled Squid. Seven five-inch-long bodies appear among sides of escarole-oil-and-garlic and vegetable-mashed rice. Either the plate's design is too small, or the squid were engineered by Jules Verne.