Dino's Greek and Italian Grill

Yesterday for dinner we went to Dino's Greek and Italian Grill. We also ate there the day after Christmas (also for dinner).

I'll start w/ last week's visit. We ordered hummus ($4.95) as an appetizer and lamb chops ($18.95) for our entree (to share).

The hummus was ok. Nothing special. Both of us didn't particularly like the pita bread served w/ the hummus. It seemed like the stuff you can buy at the grocery store - very airy (not like the thinner, chewy stuff that is served at most places). Here's a pic:

We both liked the lamb chops. They were very flavorful and cooked just right. The accompanying items (rice, tahini, veggies, and potatoes) were ok. The dish also came with a cup of soup. Our server was very nice and brought us each a cup of soup since she knew we were splitting the dish. Here's a pic:

On our visit yesterday, Patty ordered the Prawns Riviera ($16.95) and I had the Veal Scalloppine Marsala ($13.95).

Each entree came w/ choice of soup or salad. We ordered one of each. The salad was ok. I noticed that a few of the lettuce pieces were browning on the tips (not so fresh?). The soup was a lemon rice soup - Avdolemono. It was ok as well.

Here's the salad and soup:


My dish was ok. The veal was tender but the marsala sauce was very salty. The spaghetti was ok.

Patty's dish was also just ok. The flavors were good but the shrimp were overcooked. The accompanying items were ok.
Sorry for the extremely dark pictures...you can at least get an idea of what the food looks like.

Hm...lots of "ok's" mentioned...

Service was good on both visits. However, our opinion of the food definitely declined after our second visit.

The restaurant was busy on both on our visits. I think this is due to its location. There are no other Greek restaurants in the far West Valley. This part of town is loaded w/ chain restaurants and there aren't that many family owned restaurants. Actually, in the immediate vicinity, there are only a few dining options. I don't think they would do as well if there were in another part of town (w/ more dining options). Overall, I think it's pretty average. It's comparable to what you would get in a typical chain restaurant. That being said however, I would still pick Dino's any day over most chains. We'll probably be back sometime in the future.


Places mentioned:
Dino's Greek and Italian Grill
14960 W. Indian School Rd.
Goodyear, AZ 85338

A full weekend

For brunch on Saturday we went to the Market at Vincent's. The market (held every Saturday from 9am-1pm) just resumed operation last week, after being closed for the summer.

We decided to share a panino and crepe.

The panini are made to order w/ your choice of the following: shrimp, chicken, basil, tomato, mozzarella, peppers, onions, pesto (these are the ones I remember...I know I'm forgetting a few). We ordered a shrimp panino with pretty much all of the available ingredients. The panino was great. Patty thought it was even better than the panino we had eaten the night before at Andreoli. They were very different so I don't know if I would compare them directly. Overall, Vincent's panini had more flavor (as there were many more ingredients), but I really loved the beef at Andreoli. Andreoli's panino was a very simple sandwich (beef, fontina, and bread), where the flavor of the beef was the main focus.

For the crepe, I decided on a mixed berry filling (blackberry, strawberry, and blueberry).
The crepe itself was very good but the fruit filling was extremely sweet (like eating straight sugar syrup). We ended up removing most of the filling from the crepe. The residual filling still provided more than enough sweetness. Next time we'll try one with ice cream instead.

We both really liked the market. We'll be back soon...

After brunch, we met up with Al, Linda, and Selena to see Lust, Caution. For those of you have never heard of this movie before, it was directed by Ang Lee (director of Brokeback Mountain) and won a Golden Lion for best film at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. Patty had been anxiously waiting for this movie to come out. I thought it was a great movie. It's a espionage thriller set during the time of the Japanese occupation of China. Many critics have given it pretty mediocre reviews while regular viewers all seem to love the movie. The critics all seem to be focusing on the rather explicit sex scenes (the film is rated NC-17) and probably don't understand all of the cultural issues and history behind the story.

After the movie, Al, Linda, Patty and I went to Mandala Tea Room for dinner. This was the first visit there for all of us.

Mandala is an organic vegan cafe located in Old Town Scottsdale. Although I've read about this place a few times, I had forgotten about the vegan part when I suggested it....oops. =)

We ordered a few teas, soup of the day - African Peanut Soup, curry vermicelli rice noodle bowl ("asian inspired dish with cold vermicelli rice noodles topped with grilled tempeh, chilled organic veggies + almonds - served with a hot coconut curry sauce"), and mandala macro platter ("complete balanced meal - brown rice, house adzuki beans + sauteed seasonal organic veggies + fresh green side salad served with dressing infusion of choice on side").

Here are some pictures:

I thought the soup and teas were good. The soup was the best tasting thing that we ordered. It basically tasted like a butternut squash soup w/ a bit of curry and finely crushed peanuts thrown in.

The main dishes were...how to say it nicely...a bit bland? The noodles were decent but the macro platter was basically a plateful of beans, rice, and lettuce. Without the accompanying "dressing infusion", it would have been pretty hard to finish.

Although I did feel quite healthy after our meal, I thought the main dishes were way overpriced ($13 each). The food cost of each dish is probably less than a dollar. Oh yeah - it's organic...make that two dollars. I think a price of around seven to eight dollars would be reasonable.

I'm still glad we tried it, but I wouldn't go back for the food. Maybe for a tea if I was in the area.

After dinner, Patty and I headed to the Greater Phoenix Greek Festival at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral. This was our first time going to this festival. I was surprised at how many people were there...at least a few thousand people. We watched some dancing performances and then had an after dinner "snack" - a gyro and a bottle of greek beer. Both were good.

Here are some pictures:

On Sunday we made pumpkin pie (using this recipe) for the first time. Although I kept reminding Patty that there was such a thing as canned pumpkin filling, she insisted on making the filling from scratch...for the "experience". We did use a pre-made crust though.

Here's a picture of one of our "victims":

The pie turned out pretty good. It wasn't overly sweet (we modified the recipe amounts a bit) and the level of spice was just right.

Here's the finished pie...minus a sample slice. =)

We also made roasted pumpkin seeds w/ melted butter, salt, cinnamon, sugar. Yum...