aristo's

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year, but since we like to hunker down and be homebodies on Sunday nights, I wanted to go out for birthday dinner Saturday instead.  I had been in the mood for Greek food for some reason and asked around at work as to what the best Greek restaurant in town was.  Salt Lake City has a pretty big Greek population - folks who came to work in the mines - and there are a bunch of fast-food, souvlaki-type joints, but I wanted something a little nicer.  The consensus was Aristo's Restaurant, located up by the U at 224 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City, in a little neighborhood that had a Brookline, Massachusetts, sort of feel to it.

The restaurant wasn't packed but there were a good number of full tables.  A cute little hostess seated us at our reserved table and the attentive but not intrusive waiter came by at once.  Aristo's isn't huge and the cheerful 6-top next to us made things a little loud, but not so loud that we couldn't talk to each other and also hear the faint Greek pop music playing over the sound system.  (Apparently they have live Greek music Thursday nights.)

The menu has something for everyone (except maybe vegans).  We shared a saganaki appetizer, fried Kefalograviera cheese, flambeed with Metaxa (a Greek liqueur) and fresh lemon juice, and the roka salad (a big bowl of arugula dressed with lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil.  For entrees, H had angel hair pasta with burned butter, roasted tomatoes and myzithra cheese, while I ordered my favorite Greek dish, pastitisio.  The rich pastitisio - tubular pasta with ground lamb and beef, topped with bechamel - came in its own ceramic dish and was a huge serving, allowing me to take half of it home for breakfast the next day.  Aristo's serves wine (all  bottles $28; glasses of white $6.50 and glasses of red $7.50) and we got a 4 Bears cabernet sauvignon, the empty bottle of which we took home with us for re-purposing when we do another batch of homemade.

It was a good meal, tasty and filling, and we'd gladly go back to Aristo's again.  The restaurant does have some outside seating which would be pleasant in the non-winter seasons.  The very best part, however, was breaking   the chain of mediocre birthday meals - yahoo!