Return to Petros

Sandi announced that she wanted to get a gift card from this restaurant to give as a Christmas present. I immediately told her we have to have a meal so as not to waste our time driving all the way to Manhattan Beach just to buy a gift card; she agreed with me. With our busy schedule we found time to have lunch there today. We've been wanting to go back since we celebrated our friend Sujata's birthday just 2 weeks ago. See previous blog: http://solittlethyme.blogspot.com/2015/12/petros.html

We were determined to have their lamb chops which they did not offer on the lunch menu. The closest to lamb chops was the Grilled Lamb Sandwich with caramelized onions, tomatoes, whole grain mustard, mayonnaise, arugula and goat cheese served with an arugula salad. It came with a choice of ciabatta or olive bread. We did order the sandwich with olive bread. Half a sandwich was not enough for us so we decided to split the Lamb Pizza; homemade thin crispy dough topped with lamb, tomato sauce, tomatoes, kafteri dip, grilled bell peppers, red onions sprinkled with feta and kefalotiri cheese.

The sandwich was delicious with all the different flavors. I enjoyed it but didn't like my encounter with 2 pieces of fat. I usually like fat but this was not the flavorful fat, it was the chewy fat that could not be properly chewed to digest so I ended up extricating it from my mouth. Other than that, it was very good. The arugula salad that came with it was outstanding. Sandi and I loved the salad and could not figure out what was in it because you could hardly taste the bitterness of the arugula. It was not acidy from the balsamic vinegar but a bit sweet.

We were shocked to see the size of the pizza. It was bigger than expected. The lamb pizza was wonderful. It had a thin crust, the lamb tasted like a short ribs, very tender shreds of lamb. We could not finish everything so we ended up taking left overs home.

We got our credit cards out as we got ready to pay our bill when our server asked us about desserts. We told her we were too full ......however, " what desserts do you have?'. She recited a few of them when the Bougatsa got our attention. Bougatsa is a vanilla bean custard wrapped in phyllo, baked and served with ice cream, powdered sugar and cinnamon. A Chocolate Bougatsa is made with chocolate custard with Nutella. We opted for the non-chocolate.  This was fantastic. It was a warm dessert which I normally don't like but I loved this one. The vanilla bean custard was light, not overpowering. The phyllo was flaky. The ice cream was a perfect partner for this fabulous dessert.

I knew I would be going back to Petros but I didn't think it would be this soon. Sandi and I still want to go back to try the lamb chops, watermelon salad, etc. etc. and then have the Bougatsa again. Petros is at 451 Manhattan Beach Blvd., B110 in Manhattan Beach, California. They are open for lunch and dinner.