A run of the mill, standard Greek Salad

Rating – 4/10

All my past experiences of the Piatto in Cresta have been great! This salad however left me longing for something better!

Presentation
I have decided to add the presentation of the salads into my reviews…

The Piatto salad came in a regular bowl, with the salad dressing stuck in the corner of the bowl on top of the salad itself, over all the presentation came across as nothing special!
As soon as I see a salad being served in a bowl I automatically jump to the assumption that the bowl will be filled with lettuce, and all other ingredients will be piled on the top. The Piatto salad did not disappoint my assumptions!

The Cons
It had less than half a tomato?! Seriously… with all the local petrol price increases I didn’t expect tomato to become the most expensive part of a salad?! So why are we skimping on the tomato these days?
The salad really was a no fuss, nothing special, pile of lettuce in a bowl with some veggies thrown on top.
I am really loosing respect for the salads served with the ’soft gooey’ feta cheese, feta cheese should crumble. I know this contradicts some of my past reviews but I am beginning to wonder if this is the cheap alternative to real feta cheese!

The Pros
The olives were great, not to rich, yet flavorful!
I tasted the salad dressing before I even poured it onto the salad (just in case it was terrible), and I was pleasantly surprised. It appeared to be home made, as it was a dressing I had never tasted before. It came across quite strong on its own, but once poured onto the salad it complimented the veggies perfectly.

Summary
I wouldn’t go out of my way to order this one as a starter. Stick to their Camembert cheese!!

Piatto Mediterranean Kitchen

A rich, strong, flavorful Greek Salad!!

Rating – 5/10

The best way to describe this salad is simply, Rich, Strong, Flavorful… as I have said already. Fratellis in Greenside make a salad that is laced with an extremely vinegary salad dressing, and olives with a flavour that would make most people run for the closest piece of tomato, or cucumber to simply calm the flavour rush. This is not necessarily an all round bad thing. I for one quite enjoy a strong salad dressing, maybe they simply needed to put less on, or put to much on to start with.

I was dinning with a group of friends and they stole two pieces of feta cheese and I was still left at the end of my salad with a sad load of crumbed feta drowning in salad dressing… that was after rescuing the drowning pieces of remaining lettuce.

Regarding the mix of veggies… its a regular disappointment, half a tomato cut into four pieces, a few slivers of green pepper & onion, not a ridiculous amount of lettuce but it certainly was the main ingredient.

It is a salad that is as mainstream as they come, nothing special & nothing horribly wrong. It scrapes a mid level score, becuase it resembles a Greek Salad and tastes like a Greek Salad!

Kicking off the new year with a relatively top notch Greek Salad with an interesting twist… just to keep things interesting!

Rating – 6/10

Lets start by pointing out the obvious.. Pita Bread?! Having memories of the Mugg & Bean salad. They made up for this oddity by at least providing a side plate and Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil. (It makes a great mix for dunking the bread of any resturant!)

Back to the Greek Salad though, unsurprisingly it turned out to be roughly a one inch deep bowl filled with lettuce, and all the other ingredients scattered over the top. They made up for the quantity of lettuce by surprising you with a few pieces of Rocket, and Spring Onions instead of normal onions. The Spring Onions actually made for an excellent addition, they are not to strong simply adding flavour. I think this choice will go down well with most salad eaters who don’t enjoy the regular onion in salads.

Feta & Olives were run of the mill catering Calamata Olives and the Creamy Feta. The feta was not to salty though which can often be the downfall of many fetas as they can come across way to strong.

I really must find out the make of the Salad Dressing used on this dish. I have tasted it many a time on Greek Salads from all over the place. It must be a standard in the catering industry. Nothing wrong with it though, its remarkably enjoyable!

One thing I noticed was the cucumber seemed quite slimy (I left most of mine) it seemed as though it had been cut, and kept in a bowl of water to keep from drying out.

Its been over a year now that I have been running the SA Greek Salad Review site, yet I only have 12 reviews. Its been more of a hobby than anything ‘official’, but with the beginning of the new year and some inspiration from a few friends I have decided to step up the reviews.

In other exciting news, I recently met a casual blogger, who lives in & reviews restaurants in Cape Town. We have arranged to begin reviewing Greek Salads within Cape Town. That’s gonna be awesome, and I really look forward to the first reviews from the Cape.

I have also re-arranged the site, you can now easily find highly rated salads & salads specific to an area, using the new link system. We have future plans to begin reviewing commercially available Salad Dressings too, so keep on checking back for those!

I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I hope that it will be a Great Year for you all.

Being the Holiday Season I recently (well back only a few hours ago) ventured to Sodwana Bay on the west coast of South Africa, where I spent 6days at a Dive Resort called Coral Divers. The resort is amazingly well kept, and if anyone is venturing to that part of South Africa it is definitely the place to stay.

Rating – 8/10

This salad achieves the 3nd highest rating on the site so far! A the first to be photographed with a proper camera

The salad made by Coral Dives certainly is unassuming, served on a regular size dinner plate with all the salad ingredients layed out on a bed of lettuce. I must comment right now though that some of the lettuce was rather dry (it appeared slightly old, even though the photo makes it look old and soggy). The salad came with good proportions of all the regular veggies, which was a refreshing change from some of the last Greek Salads I have had. It was however lacking carrot, but they certainly were not missed! A powerful flavour boost came in the form of very rich olives, and a wonderful feta cheese that had a melt in the mouth sensation. Of course cherry tomatoes are a wonderful addition to a Greek Salad with their unique and wonderful taste bringing so much more to the Salad. The onions were perfectly proportioned giving an excellent flavour boost just here and there.

The cons sadly fall to the lettuce, the salad could have maybe done with just a little less lettuce and maybe lets throw in a small variation in the types, and we would have a winner of a salad right here!

The salad dressing came in the form of the ‘off the shelf’, Knorr – Vinaigrette Salad Dressing which suited the salad perfectly. I have decided to begin reviewing salad dressings on the blog too so keep checking back for those

Excellent work considering sodwana bay is pretty remote, so keeping most things fresh must be a challenge!

So back into the business of Greek Salad Reviews, must say I am still saddened by the quality of South Africa’s simplest of salads. Such a simple food item shouldn’t be to hard to get right, should it?!

Rating – 6/10

Well this salad did not disappoint… it simply lacked tomato?!

I ordered one of ‘Barrys’ full single portion Greek Salads, and this is what arrived. Its a complete salad of which I cannot complain much at all. It had a great variety of Lettuce and good quantities of just about every other vegetable. The only thing lacking was tomato. They chose to go with cherry tomatoes which is an instant plus in my books, however I only found two cherry tomatoes cut in half within the entire salad. Its just a little skimpy in my opinion.

The salad came with two choices of Salad Dressing which was an awesome surprise. Not often you can choose, and that gave this salad an instant extra point.

I definitely would not warn you against this salad, I would just warn you to check your Cheese Garlic Roll for mould hiding underneath it. So take it out the Aluminum Foil and examine the bottom… I was not pleasently surprised

Been a while since my last review! Sorry bout that but life has been busy!!!

Rating – 4/10

Yet another, nothing special greek salad!

I went into this very posh/up market looking restaurant thinking, ‘Okay I am gonna get hit by a huge bill, but get some awesome food and service’ Well, part of it was true!

The salad only cost R33.00 and well, as Greek Salad pricing goes that’s not to bad, but considering what you got with your salad it was nothing short of what I expected at that price. A bowl of lettuce and a few other veg sprinkled on top. I seriously need to nickname this type of salad coz its a common occurrence!! What you see balanced on top of the lettuce there is exactly what I got. There is nothing hiding, or lurking deeper in the bowl waiting to surprise you.

For kicks I am gonna break down what was in this salad!
4x Slices of Cucumber
4x Onion Rings
1x Ring of Green Pepper
8x Olives
10x Cubes of Feta Cheese
5x Slices of Tomato (probably not even making a whole tomato)

Onto the salad dressing! Served in a bowl with a tablespoon… different but nothing wrong with that, and as regular greek salad dressings go, no to shabby! It was the standard white tangy, creamy sauce with a few herbs mixed into it for flavour and colour!

So to wrap it all off, go to Salvatore… I had a great streak with a awesome portion of rice, mash patato, cooked carrots and creamed spinch. Now that is rare at a resturant these days to get such a good portion of other foods with a steak!
Would I recommend the salad. No…. don’t bother!!

Rating – 5/10

An interesting mix of vegetables, smothered in oil! Sounds good, lets have a closer look.

The Primi Piatti Greek Salad certainly is different and they have mixed it up a bit. They’ve thrown in a few ‘untraditional’ extras such as boiled egg, beans, leak, and what appeared to be roast carrots that had been soaked in oil. The entire salad came pre-drenched in oil which for those people who would prefer to apply their own dressings may be annoyed by…
The salad had a great mix of different lettuce, from regular to rocket. It had the basics of the Greek Salad… tomato, cucumber, feta, olives & grated carrot all of which I cannot fault them on. The major things that would put me off having another Primi Salad would be the fact that I was unable to put my own dressing on, the green beans and although I enjoyed the boiled egg, it didn’t seem to fix nicely with the idea of a Greek Salad. It also came a little pricey for a Greek Salad, but maybe that extra cost came in the extra veggies.

If you’re the experimental salad type, by all means this might be the one that gives you the kick you’re looking for….

http://www.primi-world.com/

So I managed to quite easily transfer all of the site from the old blogger address to the new wordpress site. So looking forward we plan to continue posting valuable, partial, and usable reviews.

I want you to be able to come to the site, and really get a fair point of view, and be able to draw from it information that is meaningful. Not some crazy review where we go ranting off about nothing of value.

So with that said, enjoy the new reviews and keep on enjoying Greek Salads

Rating – 9/10

Aha! Something that I completely did not expect! An Irish Pub to serve such an excellent Greek Salad!

If I could offer you any advice! Rock through to the Irish Pub on a good weekend and order yourself a Greek Salad! The price is so reasonable for what you get and the salad was truly excellent. Now there was nothing special in terms of the salad dressing, it was just standard Knorr Greek Salad Dressing.

The salad came well presented with an excellent mixture of salads, they potentially slacked a bit on the supply of tomato, it was only half a tomato. The feta cheese was crumbly! *Yes!* Which was wonderful! The olives were varied between pitted and non-pitted which was interesting. Personally if they had lost the pitted olives the salad would have been impeccable.

I really recommend this salad to anyone who is keen and willing to go and have a good night out.