Sfinaki Greek Taverna – Yemista? You betcha!

“Sfinaki!”  Gesundheit?  No, Sfinaki is a Greek restaurant that’s located along the 4000 block of Hastings in North Burnaby.  I swear, they have more quality restaurants/food shops along this little block than you’d expect.  Just take a look at Broken Rice, Chez Meme, and Valley Bakery to name a few.

Sfinaki has been around since 1995 and the interior decor is very representative of other traditional Greek restaurants with the white walls, arches, pillars, and greenery meant to transport you to a Greek villa.  The restaurant is sectioned off into different seating areas so it’s possible to have an intimate dining experience even if they’re busy.  When we visited in early May for lunch, we were seated in our own little section that only had 1 table.

We started out our lunch with an appy order of their Kalamari ($10).  I love when calamari comes with red onions but I wish that they would have diced the onions to make it easier to eat.  For some reason, they weren’t really crispy – I think it was the breading that they used.  But in either case, they did a pretty good job considering that we polished off the whole dish.

There must have been a bit of communication mix up with our server as we had originally ordered the lunch special Yemista ($14) but it never arrived.  When she came back to clear our table, we mentioned it and, at first, she thought we wanted to order it to go.

In any case, we eventually did get the yemista which came with a small Greek Salad that was drizzled with an olive oil/balsamic vinaigrette.

We’ve never had yemista before but it was awesome!  They stuff a large green pepper and tomato with a mixture of rice, ground beef, herbs and tomato sauce.  The pepper and tomato shells were so tender from oven-baking process but it’s a filling meal due to the rice, beef, and tomato sauce.

Aside from the mix up with our order, service was friendly enough.  We actually asked our server how to pronounce “Sfinaki” but I’m still having problems saying it properly.

4061 Hastings Street
Burnaby, BC

www.sfinaki.ca