Think Zorba dancing. "Opa!" is a Greek exclamation, and the Lebanese-oriented bistro and café of this name aspires to prompt the same enthusiasm. It succeeded well during our recent visit.

By all odds, the place should have folded. Not only do new restaurants have the failure rate of Bush foreign policies, but Opa opened a year-and-a-half ago on Federal Hill, where the competition is as intense as among carpet hawkers in Middle Eastern bazaars.

But proprietor/chef Joseph Karan and wife/hostess Aline have established more than a half-dozen restaurants, first in Lebanon and then in Nova Scotia, after he came to study in Canada at Toronto’s Cordon Bleu. Here, they started with a little sandwich shop on Hope Street, Mr. Pita, checking out local tastes before opening Opa — in the location where a restaurant named Josephine’s survived only a short time. We stepped into Opa after seeing how a nearby restaurant that we wanted to check out had gone out of business. Opa is located across from two eateries and alongside two more, including the former space of the nationally known and recently relocated L’Epicureo.

The Karans kept the former décor, including two impressionistic twilight landscapes and wine-dark aubergine walls lightened with a sponge pattern. There are only 10 tables, with two more available on the sidewalk when the weather is pleasant. A bar tucked along one wall lets food take center stage. We picked a table at wide French doors when we noticed they were opened to a farewell summer breeze.

A lot of seafood pops up from the menu, which offers several combinations, such as the calamari, scallops, and clams in the seafood chowder Quebecois ($5). Coquille St. Jacques ($9) even adds shrimp and calamari to the scallops. The signature Seafood Opa ($18) combines those ingredients with salmon.

The French culinary influence in Lebanon, plus that in Canada, shows up on the menu here and there, such as with the filet mignon au poivre ($19) and its Anjou beurre blanc sauce. But we found that the most dramatic Gallic touch was the finesse exhibited with underlying flavors.

We had plenty of examples by choosing what is billed as a Lebanese Evening. For $30 per-person, with two or more people, you get a chef-selected array of small portions, a kind of Lebanese tapas. Originally, this was available only Wednesday nights, but request after request eventually bowed Joseph to his customers’ will. Now you can indulge any night.

The plates placed before us soon spread to a second table, in a kind of slow-motion cornucopia surrounding a large Greek salad. I sampled the stuffed grape leaves first, and quickly knew we were in for a fine time. Such dolmas are more often than not only so-so, in my experience, but these had enough — just enough — lemon juice to wake up my taste buds without being too tart.

Next to a pile of pita wedges for dipping, one plate of hummus was plain, and another contained pieces of grilled lamb and well-toasted pine nuts, to bring out their sweetness. As tasty as that was, the baba ghanoush was the best I have ever tasted, deeply smoky from the eggplants being grilled black.

There also was grilled shrimp, and calamari, separately in a balsamic-oregano pool, for a little Middle-Eastern yin-yang balance. Lamb soon came with mixed vegetables, and grilled salmon marinated in olive oil and saffron, served with a cilantro sauce. Very thin pita stuffed with herbed minced lamb was our waiter’s favorite, though the powerful flavors elsewhere on the table shouted more effectively for my attention. There also would have been four beef dishes instead of the larger portions we got, but my dining mate asked that I omit red meat.

This was all before the main course.

That was a mixed grill — from chicken and little lamb chops to beef and lamb sausages — next to a salad and atop a pile of rice my fork kept returning to. (The chef said that its not-too-secret ingredient is called "lamb butter," an imported purified fat so umphy that only a spoonful is needed for a pot of rice.) I was disappointed that most of the meats weren’t more moist, although they were flavorful.

By just sampling the entrée and having much of the rest on the table packed up, we had room for dessert. A half dozen or more are available ($4-$6 a la carte), and with the Lebanese Evening, two diners get two full orders, chef-chosen. We were brought a fruit platter, which included half a pineapple and half a mango, attractively presented. The crème caramel — with egg whites only, sans the yolks of a crème brûlée — was delicious.

By then we had blown our cover as restaurant reviewers, to ask for information about the place, so we also got some baklava, which the chef wanted to silently brag about. It was a novel variation: crushed almonds inside four thumb-size honeyed phyllo rolls, with crushed pistachios on top. Opa! When we walked out, our taste buds were still dancing.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net.