Chew and Chat Is Coming To Santorini’s Greek Grill
Chat and Chew is hosting a lunch at Santorini’s Greek Grill, 290 North Central Ave (next to Costa Vida) in Farmington’s Station Park, on Thursday, June 20, 11:30 a.m. Owner Sean Dehghani is giving a prize drawing for a $25 gift card, so the lucky winner can come back for for a future lunch or date night.!
Up to 20 people can attend, so reserve your seat soon. You can email me at Val@chewandchat.com, or sign up on the FB event invitation. Deadline is next Monday.
Because Santorini’s is a fast-casual restaurant, each person will order and pay for her own meal at the counter. Most entrees are $8 each; drinks are $2 and desserts are $4.
About Santorini’s Grill: You watch your meal being custom-built, similar to Cafe Rio or Blaze Pizza. To get started, you pick a base —white or wheat pita, lemon rice, fries, lettuce, or Greek salad.
Then you choose a protein — lemon chicken, smoked garlic herb chicken, gyro meat, chicken gyro, or veggie falafel.
Next, add a choice of toppings — chopped tomatoes, kalamata olives, feta cheese, chickpeas, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, shredded carrots, corn, pepperoncini, red cabbage, corn, and dolmathes.
Then you choose a sauce — Tatziki, garlic & herb, lemon dill, roasted pepper, honey mango, hummus, garlic parsley, ranch, or Thousand Island.
Sean said the pitas are a signature item. “They’re massive, and the bread is fresh-baked at a local bakery.”
But for those looking to lower their carb count, having all the ingredients served over a bowl of fresh-veggie salad is a great light option.
The pitas are tied with twine to hold them together, but they are so full of ingredients that they can get pretty sloppy to eat…at least, that’s what happened with my hubby’s when we ate there. You are venturing well into knife-and-fork territory here.
Another signature item is the Greek yogurt bar — thick Greek yogurt, and a choice of honey, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, mango, or granola toppings. Or you can choose the traditional baklava for dessert.
Dehghani said he’d like to see more people try the Greek-Style Nachos ($10) — fresh-fried potato chips topped with lemon chicken, feta cheese, and other toppings. “They were on our secret menu and got so popular we added it to the main menu,” he said.
He opened the restaurant about seven months ago, after years working in local Greek restaurants. He applied the “Cafe Rio” or “Cafe Zupa’s” concept to Greek food, because “it seems like people are leaning toward a fast-casual, build-your-own style.”
I like the sea-blue and white décor, and the wall mural of a Greek seaside — it looks a lot like Santorini island in the Aegean Sea. The mural brought back a few memories for me, as Greece was the first foreign country I visited back when I was a naïve 20-something. I was taken aback by the crowded Athens streets, and I was pretty timid about the food. I was shocked when I ordered grilled shrimp at a seaside restaurant, and it was served head-on, looking almost like a plate of insects. The grilled lobster also arrived whole, and needed a lot of cracking and shelling to get to the meat. Feta seemed pretty tangy compared to the Swiss and cheddar cheese I’d relied in back in the U.S.A. Greece helped me learn to be more adventurous, since the following year I moved to Saudi Arabia. During the four years I spent traveling to many other countries, I learned to accept, and even embrace, many of the unfamiliar foods.
Back to Santorini’s Greek Grill…this is the inaugural Chat and Chew event, and I hope to present at least one lunch per month at a different Davis County restaurant. Everyone and anyone is invited (including guys, although this seems to be more of a women-type event). It’s an opportunity to try out a new restaurant, meet new people and network. You can be a working professional, retired, a stay-at-home parent, college student — whatever. Please reserve your spot by emailing me at Val@chewandchat.com, or on my FB invitation.