It'll All Be Greek To You At Edmonds' Kafe Neo

Kafe Neo, 21108 Highway 99, Edmonds. Open Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 8:30 7 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Closed Sunday. 672-3476. --------------------------------------------------------------- -- EDMONDS

From the outside, the Kafe Neo doesn't look like much. A neat, shake-wood-paneled dollhouse with some neon in the windows.

Once you walk in, however, it's an entirely different take. It seems three times as big.

The walls are a bright clean white with traditional blue pattern trim, the kitchen is shiny new stainless steel, charbroiler flaming, a roast turning on a vertical spit. Owners Sofeea Koures-Huffman and Kelly Helsper are busy behind the counter, taking orders, cooking and bantering with customers. The room still has some just-built echo to it, but you know it won't be there for long.

Helsper and Koures-Huffman opened the Greek eatery a month and a half ago. They're both from Missoula, Mont., a town second only to Chicago in the number of gyro (pronounced yeer-o) shops to be found.

"My godmother's brother started the first one," says Koures-Huffman. "My family had a restaurant as well." After graduating from college she worked as a bookkeeper, but it wasn't what she wanted to do. "We got some help from my parents, found a location and opened the shop." So far, she says, business has been good.

It should. The women have kept the menu simple, concentrating on making the food as fine as possible. There are five Greek specialty sandwiches, as many straight deli items, a few salads, a daily soup and three side orders - freshly cut french fries (85 cents), which are very Greek; spanakopita ($1.95), a feta and spinach mix in a wrap of flaky filo dough; and tropita ($1.75), spanakopita without the spinach. You can also get espresso drinks, and there are a half dozen Greek pastries.

The gyros are great, fat rolls of vegetables and meat, although the vegetarian gyro ($2.95) - much like a Greek salad wrapped in fresh hot pita bread - also speaks well for itself. The tomato, onion and lettuce - a Missoula twist, Koures-Huffman says - are mixed with pungent feta and dressed with tzatziki sauce, a wonderful blend of yogurt, cucumber and dill. If you have to have meat, the standard gyro ($3.15, $3.60 with feta) is mixed with beef shaved from the oregano-and-mint-seasoned roast, or the beefteki ($3.05, $3.50 with feta), three charbroiled hamburger patties mixed with the salad fixings. The souvlaki ($3.65, $4.10 with feta) gives you a choice of marinated chicken or pork skewered and charbroiled.

The soup sampled ($1.25 and $1.95) was augolemona, chicken and rice in a broth rich with lemon. Very flavorful without being overwhelming. The spanakopita ($1.75) made a very nice cold side dish. The gyro salad ($4.25), topped with a generous amount of the sliced gyro beef, was almost too much to finish. All the fresh desserts - there are six, along with an assortment of cookies - are first-rate, although a recently sampled baklava was a bit dry.

Koures-Huffman says that the restaurant is planning on adding one full Greek dinner to the menu on a nightly basis.

"We'll just make up one dish, and when it's gone it's gone."

The women are also hoping to paint the outside of the building white to match the interior. It would certainly give the restaurant that warm, baked-in-the-sun Greek seashore look.

It already has the flavor.

Restaurant reviews are a regular Thursday feature of the Seattle Times Snohomish County section. Reviewers visit restaurants unannounced and pay in full for all their meals. When they interview restaurant management and staff, they do so only after the meals and services have been appraised.