Santorini’s Greek Feast of Food Dance

On a Saturday night, we are at the Santorini Greek Island Restaurant in Torrance, where a belly dancer is entertaining the next table. A white-haired man is trying to figure out where and how to tuck a dollar bill into the dancer’s costume: He waves it, she shimmies in response. He reaches tentatively toward her jiggling chest, rethinks it, aims instead for her undulating hip. With each passing moment, his face grows a deeper shade of red until, finally, the dancer stops and says in clear, amused tones, “Would you like me to show you how to do that?”

(The trick, it seems, is to tuck the bill, folded lengthwise, into a shoulder strap.)

The cheerful Santorini Greek Island Restaurant is located in the very northern end of the large Rolling Hills Plaza on the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway--look for the cluster of cars in the otherwise empty lot and the signboard announcing the night’s specials. Inside, the color scheme is the white of Greek island dwellings and the blue of the Aegean Sea. Photographs of that alluring Greek island line the walls, punctuated by small reproductions of famous statuary--”Venus de Milo,” et al. Bouzouki music plays at a reasonable volume--at least until the belly dancing begins.

The menu offers the usual Greek standbys and some of the cook’s own creations. Cold appetizers include a delicious tzatziki (yogurt with chopped cucumbers and garlic) spiked with fresh, lacy dill. Melitzanosalata, a baked eggplant spread, is less inspired: a heavy paste that tastes mostly of strong garlic. I’ve also had fluffier, milder taramosalata, fish roe spread, but I appreciated this version’s incisive, salty fishiness.

On the whole, hot appetizers are more interesting. Fried zucchini slices, golden brown on the outside, silken within, are sprinkled with a sharp, crumbled cheese and really touched off with a dollop of tzatziki. Our waiter, an enthusiastic young man, promises “the largest flame ever” with the saganaki, and indeed, the Greek cheese ignites with a great, whooshing ball of fire. It’s a wonder our waiter’s fine, dark eyebrows remain.

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Slices of good, salty Greek sausage swim in a wine sauce. Plump sea scallops and tender calamari are well-seared and smoky from the grill; the herbed wine sauce is a bit sweet--nothing a squeeze of lemon wouldn’t cure.

Another squeeze of lemon would have given the avgolemono, the traditional egg lemon soup, more pep and thus mitigated its resemblance to porridge. Better to opt for the lentil soup or, best of all, a small green salad with sweet red onion and crumbled feta cheese, all of which can come with one of the traditional Greek dinners.

All the dinners come with an unexceptional rice pilaf, wonderful lemon-infused roasted potatoes and a stew of mixed beans. The plates are large, generous.

A special of Macedonian lamb is a shank cooked forever in foil with rosemary and garlic; it’s earthy, hearty, fall-apart tender. More long-cooked lamb appears in the tasty, deeply spiced stuffed eggplant. The best lamb, however, has to be the marinated medium-rare toothsome chunks of lamb souvlaki, or shish kabobs.

Half a chicken baked with lemon and oregano is dry and uninteresting and tastes leftover. Again, the cooked-to-order marinated, skewered chunks of chicken souvlaki are moist, more flavorful.

For sheer visual impact, there’s the combination seafood kabob: large shrimp skewered in such a way they curl around whole sea scallops--too bad they’re cooked a little too long.

Once it cools down enough to taste, the moussaka, eggplant layered with ground meat and bechamel sauce, is quite respectable. And the vegetarian platter is particularly varied: cool and refreshing rice-filled grape leaves, hummus, tzatziki, grilled pita bread and delicious spinach pie.

Neither of the two dessert options are very good. Galaktobouriko is a cold, dense, grainy custard wrapped in filo dough. Baklava, while thick with ground nuts, is soggy. Sweet Greek coffee would be much better if made with filtered water; as it is, a cup gives off the same steamy tap water aroma of hot dishwasher.

* Santorini Greek Island Restaurant, 2529 Pacific Coast Highway, Torrance, (310) 534-8898. Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Beer and wine served. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $26-$60.