Nothing on the menu of understated Ballard gem Taki’s Mad Greek prepares diners for the enormous spanakopita, which arrives on a football-size plate, puffed up like Popeye’s flexed bicep.

Though I’d known about Taki’s for years—the Ditos family has been serving Seattle gyros and Greek salads in various locations for more than four decades now—I only became a regular after a family trip to Greece last year.

The first couple meals there, I settled in for the skordalia and souvlaki that reminded me of Thessaloniki. Then, one fateful evening, I tacked the spanakopita onto my order because the best way to remember to eat my greens is to get them encased in dough. It worked.

The size of the spanakopita opens the space for far more spinach and feta than the dainty palm-size triangles standard to most Greek restaurants in the US. The flaky layers of buttery filo stay crisp in the oversized format, maintaining the ideal balance with the cheesy greens that make the classic appetizer such a standard. The spinach is smooth and fragrant, tasting of recent cooking.

The space is somewhat simple and the service European-paced, but coming in with properly set expectations makes those quirks, rather than knocks, letting Taki’s just be exactly the kind of crowd-pleaser every neighborhood deserves. Plus, I always leave having eaten plenty of spinach. Popeye would be proud.