Seoul’s Santorini offers finest Greek Cuisine

  Left: Pork souvlaki, a popular Greek dish of small pieces of meat and vegetables on a skewer Top right: Greek salad mixed with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta cheese with fresh olives Bottom right: Tzatziki, left, a yogurt sauce or dip, and taramosalata, a caviar spread.

If you feel enough is enough in nearby restaurants to refresh your tastes, just turn your eyes to Greek dishes.

When it comes to Greece, visual images come first to mind with cobalt-blue skies and dazzling sunshine on the Mediterranean coastal areas, rather than its tastes which are still unfamiliar with many gourmets in Korea.

Santorini, a Greek restaurant located in Itaewon, Seoul, offers mild but special Greek dishes, also creating an exotic atmosphere inside its interior.

Many diners are increasingly enjoying Greek cuisine because they are a mixture of cuisines which share a common Mediterranean flavor. Almost every Greek dish is usually cooked with olive oil. Greek dishes are traditionally served warm rather than hot.

Take a seat beside the balcony-like sidewall with cobalt-blue colored window frames at the restaurant adorned with some Greek items and paintings. Order a Greek salad, a mix four-spread combo for an appetizer and a pork souvlaki for a main dish.

The Greek salad is mixed with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta cheese with fresh olives. The topping of olives and feta cheese are a wonderful combination without the strong flavors associated with some vegetables or sauce in other salads.

The mix combo consists of four colorful spreads; tzatziki, a Greek sauce or dip made of strainted yogurt flavored with garlic and onion, taramosalata, a Greek caviar spread with pale pink color, eggplant spread and skordalia, a Greek garlic potato sauce. Taste the spreads on fresh bread for tastes that range from sweet to fresh sour white sauce, which stimulated the appetites before digging into the main dish.

Souvlaki, is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables served on a skewer. The dish that we recommend to order is two skewers of porks, along with various vegetables, a scoop of rice, tzatziki sauce and fried potatoes. The skewered meat and vegetables, which are similar with Korean street skewers, are baked and so are not greasy. If you don’t want to venture too far into new food, it is recommendable to order gyros and pita bread. The baked bread, stuffed with tzatziki, feta cheese, pork and salted potatoes tastes like a kebab sandwich. But tzatziki gives a fresh taste to roasted chopped meats, which are harmonized with onions, cucumbers and vegetables, along with a heap of fried potatoes on the plate.

Also, you can taste a variety of assorted Greek wines, which are rarely served in Korea. The restaurant serves Greek signature wines such as Cava Cambas, Naoussa Boutari and Mavrodaphne. White wines such as Santorini are also served.

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