Gyros is one of my favorite foods. Forged by the ancient Greek gods and handed to us mere mortals, it is culinary perfection. And I haven’t had one in over a year.
I was skimming one of the many take-out menus that find their way into my house. Amongst the usual pizza place items I see it, that magic word that must never be uttered in malice. 2 minutes later I had my order secured with the restaurant and is currently in production and transit.
I’m counting down the minutes until arrival by watching some Good Eats episodes, food porn before the main event.
Mmmboy, gyros! The first time I had them, I had the best I’ve ever had. They sliced the meat uber thin, the onions were in strings, finely diced tomatoes, and a nice, soft pita. Sauce on the side—I like a little, not a lot.
I’d be hungry for them now if I hadn’t already eaten. There’s a Tex Mex place not far from here. Tonight I had: ginormous baked potato with cheese, butter, sour cream, and carne asada. The total weigh on that sucker was prolly 2 lbs.
Oh, I’m so sorry. A gyro isn’t a gyro if you don’t get to watch them slice the meat. And fake feta?! Yuck.
We’re fortunate enough to live within a couple miles of two of the best gyro places in the south suburbs. And the better of the two is fun just for the ordering process, with the guy who never writes anything down and never misses, either.
We had gyros, good gyros, on State Street. But despite being a mere couple of hundred of miles from Chicago, I had never even heard of Italian Beef until I moved to the Chicago suburbs.
I’ve rarely had good experiences with Gyros from pizza joints. They sell crappy Gyro kits at the supermarket, and I swear that’s what the last gyro I got from a pizza place was, built from a kit.
I used to live in the city, there was a little Greek deli literally 2 doors down from me that made perfect gyros and baklava. Now that I’m in the 'burbs, I miss that place soooo much.
The “gh” in “night” is not pronounced at all, really, it just modified the “t” - if it was “nite” you’d say it the same. And /ghee-roos/ is wrong too, it’s /ghee-ross/.
I haven’t had Gyros in a while. There’s a Greek restaurant that a friend and I go to occasionally, but we almost always have the buffet, so I have no idea how their Gyros are. There is a place near me that does a pretty good Philly cheese steak which I think also has Gyros on the menu, but I’ve never tried them.
I have to wait for my trips back to Chicago to get Italian Beef, though. I tried explaining what a real Italian Beef sandwich is like to my friend here, and her response was, “So it’s a French Dip, right?”
Back when I was a teenager I spent long enough in Greece to learn the basics of its pronunciation, which are significantly different from that of Ancient Greek. I suspect that the “y” in /yeeros/ is the best approximation that English speakers are finding to the Modern Greek gamma.
A proper gyros is made with tzatziki, which may be yogurt based but is still a different thing altogether. It also contains lots of thinly sliced onion, tomato, crumbled feta and (sometimes) thick-cut fries.
The filling is usually a ground spiced meat mixture that is thinly sliced, but some places do it using chunks of seasoned meat (pork, chicken or lamb) that are prepared similarly to shawarma.
This thread has given me a wicked bad gyros craving. Good thing I live near Greektown… I do believe I’ll grab one for dinner on the way home tonight.
