By Charlotte Balcomb Lane
For the Journal
During the peak of the 1980s ethnic food craze, Greek and Middle Eastern restaurants seemed to blossom on every corner. Then tensions in the Middle East made the cuisines of the region polically unpopular and many eateries withered. Luckily, some still serve to remind us that good food is a universal bond. At tiny Pars Diner in the Northeast Heights and the larger Olympia Cafe near the University of New Mexico, you can order lip-smacking gyros, kebabs and baklava and forget about politics.

Pars Diner LOCATION: Montgomery and San Mateo in the Montgomery Plaza Mall; 889-3685 HOURS: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday Olympia Cafe LOCATION: 2210 E. Central; 266-5222 HOURS: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Friday, noon-10 p.m. Saturday

At both places, you order at the counter and sit for your meal. And both menus offer international beers and wines.
Pars Diner is a spic-and-span spot in a busy shopping center, where owners Mohamed and Shahnaz Tafti have served Iranian and Greek specialties since 1984. Shahnaz is the cook for the 13-table diner, and she makes a mean gyro sandwich with a fresh, crispy salad ($5.99). If you don't know about a gyro, it's a Middle Eastern burrito made with ground, seasoned lamb that has been molded around a spit and roasted vertically. The meat is sliced off in long strips and served hot wrapped in pita bread with onions, tomatoes and a mild yogurt sauce.
At Pars, the pita is thick and pillow-soft, which gives you a good grip for biting into the spicy sandwich. The salad is sprinkled with unpitted Greek olives, squares of salty feta cheese and pieces of tomato. The light dressing makes the meal substantial, but not stuffing. You can return to work without worrying about your Tums.
My companion ordered a Persian jujeh kabob ($5.99). It was a skewer of juicy, marinated chicken breast over saffron-tinted basmati rice with broiled wedges of fresh tomato and pita. It was filling, but not fattening. I thought the bland, dry rice cried out for sauce, but Middle Eastern rice dishes are often dry.
A side of spanakopita ($1.99) was a weak link in the otherwise fine meal. The filo-wrapped triangle of spinach, hard-boiled egg, dill and lemon was assertive on the inside but the dough was limp from reheating and lacked deep flavor from butter or olive oil.
Pars' menu includes many meatless items, such as stuffed grape leaves, hummus and felafel. Lunch, with beverages for two, was $16.95.
The Olympia Cafe serves a similar menu but the food is generally oilier, and portions are larger. Owners Spiros and Marina Counelis have been serving Greek food around Albuquerque since 1972, so they have plenty of people-pleasing practice. The gyro sandwich ($3.55) is enormous, and if you order the Greek platter ($6.35), prepare to pack food home. It comes with an extraordinarily tangy, tender skewer of marinated pork tenderloin, a mountain of gyro meat, a soft pita for wrapping, and rice or potatoes. Again, dry rice was the weak link. But the salad was superb, laced with herbs and an oily dressing and tossed with feta cheese. For dessert, we split baklava: a rich, nut-filled pastry of filo dough soaked in honey sauce ($1.75). Sweet it was, but short on honey flavor. A huge meal for one cost $9.42.