Yeah, just the meat, as far as I know, though I suppose that tzatziki wouldn’t be bad. I’ve never had one, but I’ve heard of it. Speaking of odd uses of gyros meat, There’s also a somewhat obscure sandwich here in the Chicago called the Jim Shoe/Shoo, which (usually, but there is some variation) has gyros meat, roast beef, and corned beef on a sub roll, served with lettuce, tomato, and tzatziki.
You can also find a “gyros puff” at some places, which is like a pizza puff, except with gyros meat. (And a pizza puff, in case it isn’t universal, as I do think it is somewhat local, is basically a deep fried meat pie/empanada/hot pocket kind of thing.)
That could well be; I also suspect that popularity of gyros may be regional and focused on larger cities with Greek populations.
FWIW, two of my favorite local gyros places here in suburban Chicago are combination gyro / hot dog and Italian beef / pizza places. So, they have the autodoner machines (the rotating gyros spits), and the meat, but of the two, only one offers gyros meat as a pizza topping.
My understanding is that technically speaking, the “gyro” is the rotating spit-roasted meat (usually lamb). The toppings arent necessarily implied when you say “gyro.”
Just like how “falafel” means the fried chickpea balls, but in some localities, when you say “falafel,” you mean an entire sandwich that includes falafels.
There is a place about a mile from me called Greek Tony’s Pizza (local joint been here forever) and sure enough they have a “Gyro Meat Pie”… “pizza sauce, gyro meat, onion, tomato slices, topped with mozzarella and feta cheese.” I’ll have to give it a try (their gyro sandwiches are great.
We also have Pizza King here which has toppings to the edge and is cut into squares. They use provolone and not Provel. They also have all meat toppings chopped into tiny bits. It is one of my comfort foods since it was the local place where I grew up. My dad would go to pick it up and when he got home, the tiny corner pieces would always be gone. He blamed it on mice. When I brought it home for my kids when they were little they also seemed to have a “mouse” problem.
Thanks for the reminder of the Taco pizza at Happy Joe’s… haven’t thought of that in years but it was actually pretty good.
I think that you can find really good pizza in most reasonably sized cities if you know where to look. I can find good to great examples of most any style near me, but that doesn’t make us a “pizza city” like NYC or Chicago.
I normally align almost exactly in my food tastes with Pulykamell, but when you said you can’t stand BBQ sauce on a pizza I have to disagree. There used to be a place that had a “Cowboy” pizza with BBQ sauce that I loved from time to time. Not something I would eat all the time but it was a good variation. They had a really smokey sauce and not a sweet one so maybe that makes the difference. I just noticed that Pizza King has that as an option, so now I’ll have to get a gyro and a BBQ pizza soon.
Oh yeah… Snowboarder Bo what is the good pizza place in Henderson? My sister-in-law lives there so I’ll have to tell her to check it out.
I have a Pizza Hut in my hometown. And I assume the Pizza Hut pizzas in St Louis are the same as the ones in my hometown. What I want to try is a St Louis style pizza - thin crispy crust, provel, edge to edge toppings, cut into squares.
Some reviews speak highly of Pizza-a-Go-Go. But I checked their website and their menu features “New York style Pizza”. So it may be really good pizza but it’s something I can readily get at home.
There used to be a small Italian restaurant in Henderson called Montesano’s, but the husband & wife who owned and ran it finally retired and shut it down a few years ago now. Their pizza, like all their food, tasted like stuff I used to make with my great-grandmother and my grandmother: real Italian home-cooking type stuff. I’d recommend them over everything else in the valley while they were still around.
ETA: Oh, and my buddy says we got the fried eggplant pizza from Frankie’s, on Eastern, in case anyone was curious.
I personally think Imo’s is pretty consistent throughout the chain when it comes to preparing a pizza, although the atmosphere varies widely from store to store. Some people are partial to Melo’s. Farotto’s is good, but a little pricey for what you get.
I may be disloyal to my hometown, by I think St. Louis style pizza is only okay. I like it best as party food, mixed in with the chips, nachos, and poor boy sandwiches cut into small pieces, and downed with large amounts of cheap American beer.
Speaking of poor boys, for a real St. Louis treat, go to Amighetti’s on The Hill and get one of their sandwiches.
Ah, I thought there was one more thing about St. Louis pizza that made it different from Chicago style thin crust (though I don’t know about Dayton.) Apparently, St. Louis pizza uses a yeast-less crust, at least according to America the Edible: A Hungry History from Sea to Dining Sea.
Now how accurate that book is, I don’t know. When I was talking about “cracker crust” up there, I knew there were some places that made their doughs without yeast, and hence really taking on a real cracker-type consistency and taste, but I didn’t think St. Louis style was one of them. The Zaffiro’s I mentioned is crackly and thin, and I describe it as “cracker crust,” but as far as I know, they do use yeast in their dough. That said, looking up Imo’s copycat recipes, I do see that all of the ones I’m finding have baking powder instead of yeast, including the obsessive pizza geeks over at pizzamaking.com, and they’re known to be pretty knowledgable about the minutiae of various pizza styles and doughs.
Turns out Serious Eats has an illustrated run-down of various US regional pizza styles that is handy for folks looking for a reference. And, they say St. Louis style pizza is unleavened, which I think they mean not yeast-leavened, but who knows.
Excuse me. Actually, that includes Italian styles of pizza as well. And it’s not an exhaustive list. For example, it doesn’t mention Quad Cities style (but does mention Ohio Valley as a style.) And there is a bit of overlap with some of the styles, particularly bar, Chicago thin, and Midwest-style.
A place near me makes a gyro pizza which I have never tried. I’m pretty sure they replace the tomato sauce with the gyro cucumber sauce, which I don’t want to know about.
I worked at a pizza place that roasted their own beef for the beef sandwiches. I can’t say I’m always opposed to replacing the tomato sauce on a pizza with something else, because when we spread BBQ sauce from a bottle on a stretched out dough and topped that with (really thin) beef slices and mozzarella, it cooked up to be something really yummy.
All I was saying is, that in my opinion, you really really want to avoid Imo’s. If there is a gas station on the highway exit ramp with pizza slices under glass, try those instead.
I think it’s worth trying just for the experience. I like to make fun of it, but it’s not terrible, IMHO. It’s quirky and its own thing, and I could see how if you grew up with that type of pizza (poor souls) it may scratch an itch. Lord knows, next time I end up in St. Louis, I may find myself at Imo’s again (or do some research as to who else does this Provel-style yeastless pizza) because, well, when in Rome… I just like getting food I can’t get back home, no matter how marginal it is.
It’s like a garbage plate. I’m not actually a big fan. But if you’re visiting Rochester, NY and want to try the regional cuisine, it’s something you should have. With a Genny Cream.
It’s kind of like last week when it was 20 below. I hear ya. I had to go outside just to experience it for myself, to really know. Now I know, and will never need to do it again.
Yeah, here’s a video of Imo’s. I guess they don’t even roll out or sheet their fresh dough, but already have some sort of parbaked pizza shell ready to top (you can see it at 6:15 and again at 9:58.) It almost looks like a thinner version of one of those Boboli pizza crusts you can buy at the store.
But I’ve enjoyed good pizza in lots of places. I tend to prefer thin crust, and I like most of the decent pizza places in NY. I’ve had good pizza in Chicago, both deep dish and thin crust. But sometimes the thin crust is too thick and spongey. (I like deep dish, but I look for different things in it.) I’m not a huge fan of the “Greek style” pizza in Boston, but there’s plenty of decent pizza there, too. I visit DC all the time, but don’t recall eating pizza there.
Funny thing is, there’s a great pizza joint called Stop 50 Pizza in Michiana Shores, Indiana, that does a wood-fired Neapolitan-style pie (though a bit of a variant, as it’s usually a bit crispy and drier than most Neapolitans I’ve had). And, for whatever reason, at least the last time I went there a couple years ago, one of the four or five beers they served was Genessee Cream Ale for like five or six bucks. My wife, who is from Buffalo, did a double take. Just seemed so out-of-place in a place like that. But, maybe it just didn’t want PBR as the cheap hipster beer of choice, so picked Genny Cream.
Yeah, the thin crust in Chicago has quite a range. Some thin crust places are more what I would call medium. You have to know your local joints to know which ones do it truly thin, and which are on the doughy side of “thin.”