{"id":8864,"date":"2025-08-03T14:18:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T18:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=8864"},"modified":"2025-08-03T14:18:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T18:18:26","slug":"zaytoon-is-danvilles-latest-also-its-greatest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2025\/08\/03\/zaytoon-is-danvilles-latest-also-its-greatest\/","title":{"rendered":"Zaytoon: Is Danville\u2019s Latest Also its Greatest?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Connor Parks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s safe to say that Centre doesn\u2019t quite remember Sabor Americana. I\u2019m not sure why, since every picture I ever saw of their dishes online looked fantastic, but nobody ever really seemed to talk about it; even locals I\u2019d mention it to. When I got wind that another new restaurant would be taking their place along Hustonville Road, then, I was thrilled to hear that Danville would be getting some more options, and even more thrilled when I learned it would be a full-menu Mediterranean place. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ll be a Parthenon enjoyer \u2018til the day I die, but I\u2019d been missing some good shawarma, kafta, and more that they don\u2019t offer. For no discernible reason, Mediterranean food is a staple in my family, and I tend to look for a good place to get it wherever I go. Regardless, as soon as I started seeing dozens of raving reviews of Zaytoon pop up on Google, along with some photos which looked almost too good to be true, I knew I needed to stop by and see if what I ordered lived up to the hype. Spoiler alert: it did, and even exceeded even my high expectations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaytoon is Danville\u2019s latest Mediterranean restaurant, offering menu items such as kebabs, shawarma, kafta, dolma, lamb chops, salads, and many more at reasonable prices. I went with a friend on an early Sunday afternoon, when the post-church crowd made up a decent portion of those dining, yet from online reviews it seems they\u2019re consistently fairly busy. Fortunately, this didn\u2019t seem to affect our food\u2019s prep time, as it was out within about 10 minutes of us ordering. Service is simple: just go up to the counter, flip through the menu (seen below!), order, and wait for them to bring it to the table. Being particularly hungry, I chose the Chicken Shawarma platter for $18.99, which seemed high before I realised just how much<\/em> food it included. I gladly would\u2019ve paid $25 for the portion size, which could\u2019ve easily fed 2. My friend ordered the beef version of the same platter, and we split a $7 order of hummus as an appetizer. The environment is relaxed and comfortable, with music in Greek and Arabic playing over the speakers for an enjoyable vibe. Service is absolutely wonderful: despite the counter-order nature of the place, our order-taker came to check on us a while after we\u2019d gotten our food even with a moderate amount of customers. 2 tall D\u00f6ner rotisseries sat behind the order counter, with cooks slicing off chicken and beef for all sorts of menu items. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the food came out, I immediately noticed that Zaytoon takes presentation very<\/em> seriously. Platters are served on wooden plates, garnished with colourful (and tasty!) vegetables while the meat and cut-up wrap are precisely arranged. Both platters came with 5-6 crispy mini-wraps of the respective marinated meat, with more sliced meat stacked on fries in the middle. Also included was a delicious, whipped garlicky sauce which I dipped both meat and fries in. The hummus, meanwhile, was clearly meticulously prepared for presentation, with carefully arranged garnishes of paprika, basil, coriander, and olive oil atop the rich chickpea spread. After the hostess came and checked on us, she brought out some Ziploc bags of pita to eat with it, which worked equally as well as the fries. Everything, and I mean everything, tasted wonderful. The meat was very well seasoned and packed full of flavour, while the spreads were rich, creamy, and worked well with anything dipped in them. All in all, it was just about some of the best quantity and quality of food I\u2019ve found for the price, especially around here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaytoon gives me lots of hope in a special kind of way. I\u2019ve only been here for 2 years, yet I haven\u2019t seen a restaurant pop up to such massive initial success in such a brief period of time. And for good reason: from service, to quality, to presentation, to menu variety, they seemed to have mastered small local restauranting. I would go out of my way to come to Danville just for the chance to get lunch or dinner here, no question. My only concern at this point is that I haven\u2019t heard Centre students talking enough about the place, which I hope changes soon. They\u2019re absolutely worth your business, and there\u2019s no way you won\u2019t leave full. There\u2019s more than a few great local places to eat around Danville if you know where to look, and Zaytoon has the potential to make a serious, long-lasting name for itself in the community as one of the very best of these. Stop by as soon as you can for a delicious lunch or dinner you won\u2019t forget!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Connor Parks I think it\u2019s safe to say that Centre doesn\u2019t quite remember Sabor Americana. I\u2019m not sure why, since every picture I ever saw of their dishes online looked fantastic, but nobody ever really seemed to talk about it; even locals I\u2019d mention it to. When I got wind that another new restaurant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-leisure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8866,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions\/8866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}