Then, of course, we have Tina Turner’s protest song against their proliferation, “We Don’t Need Another Gyro”
everytime I see this thread title, I think of the poem “Waiting for the Giro” in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾.
That’s all I got.
I love them too, we have some good Greek Diners around here. I always pronounce it wrong: gy- as in gyrate and -ros as in rows. I don’t remember feta cheese in them, I just remember onions, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, that wonderful sauce and the wonderful spiced meat on pita bread. I think I’ll get one tonight too.
I have only ever heard it pronounced yee-rows. However, I’ve eaten a ton of the delicious things, and have never seen lettuce on them, always onion, tzatziki, and sometimes tomato. Are they supposed to have lettuce and feta on them? Or are there really just different standards? Either which way, those things are so good, I have about one every two weeks.
I live next to a mall and they have a Greco-Italian joint in their food court. Actually, it’s two separate joints, but they’re run by the same people. I have only ate from the Italian side once, but I eat from the Greek side a lot. Because of this thread, I went and ate there today. I ordered a “Giant Gyro.” The difference between the giant and the regular at this place, besides size, is that the giant has feta and the regular does not. I used to order it sans lettuce, but now I get it with lettuce. Recently, they took baklava off the dessert menu and now they only have cinnamon pitas there.
I had one for lunch today!
A gyro deluxe, with thin onions, mounds of feta, diced cucumber (pickled slightly? at least marinated in something) and peppers… For 6 bucks you get a hell of a meal. You spend half your time eating with a fork before you even see the pita.
Like Chicago, It’s tough to spit here in Milwaukee without hitting a gyro stand. Some Wisconsin-it-up by also serving frozen custard.
They’ve opened a good gyros joint just south of San Jose (Opa!), and I’ve eaten there a few times now.
Brilliant place - they do a good spicey gyros mixture on soft pita with ripe tomato chunks and slivers of red onion. Their tzaziki is marvelous, but quite garlicky. I’m sure I’ve returned to work reeking, but I don’t care. Gotta git the gyros fix!
The best gyros I’ve ever had was on Santorini (in Thira city). It was also the first. Nothing has ever compared. I am intrigued by the northern Greek tendency to stick big fat French fries in their gyros though. It’s rather delicious.
You may know this already, but there’s a great place on San Carlos right off of 880: Falafel’s Drive-In.
When I was in high school, I worked for a Greek couple that ran a donair (or gyros) joint. They had hamburgers, Montreal smoked meat and other stuff too (also very delicious) but I loved their donairs and I wasn’t the only one.
I can remember more than once, several (rather cute) guys would show up and loudly exclaim over having found them, and they’d happily talk to the couple for awhile, reminiscing about how they’d bought donairs from them when they had been in high school.
I can get gyros here, in fact I have a good shop just across the street and in the summer the Greek festival happens just up the road from me, but I still miss that store since I moved away.
Parthenon! How many times did I find myself there at 2AM on a Saturday morning? Too many.
In addition to those, I’ve seen Yeer-oce in a Greek place but another “Greek” place calls them Jye-rose.
I usually point to the menu and say “one of those” please.
My first one 30 years ago was at a Gondola Pizza place. It burned down and it was years later before another place opened to serve them. Now there are several and I’m less than a mile from one.
Good eats.
No baklava? However do you manage? One of the other grad students is Turkish, and whenever he goes home, he returns with a suitcase full of baklava to share… The really good stuff, too, made with pistachios instead of walnuts.
Just this year, the food court in the student union got a Greek place. It’s about the quality you’d expect from a university food court, but still, mediocre gyros and falafel is better than no gyros or falafel at all. Now we just need an Indian restaurant in this town…
Now if I could only get shawarmas here.
I’m in the non-Greek wasteland of Gilroy, 20 minutes south of San Jose. I grew up in Chicago, 1962 through 1987, and had no idea it was a Pizza and Greek food mecca. There was a pizza place or Greek hamburger joint on every corner, and nearly every one had pizza or hot dogs or gyros or Italian Beef that were most excellent. I assumed that this was the normal way of things until I moved west.
I lived in SJ for about 14 years, and sorely missed all this – every pizza place sucked, there were no Greeks, no gyros, no decent hot dogs, and forget Italian Beef sandwiches. What a f’d up place to live. For a while there was a Greek take-out place in Santa Clara named called “Yiassoo” that had hmmm… okay Gyros, but it really wasn’t the same.
I have yet to find decent Pizza in the area, for going on 20 years. I’ve given in to the monstrosity which is WeinerSchitzel for weak imitation Chicago hot dogs.
Since moving to Gilroy, I’ve given up on ever seeing Gyros, there’s no hope. OTOH, there are actually a few decent Indian and Thai places here, which cushions the blow. The Pizza situation is abysmal, especially considering this area was settled by Italians, who proceeded to make garlic the world’s favorite spice, but can’t make pizza worth a damn.
FYI: “Year Ohs”. Trill your tongue on that “r” if you’re capable.
Ahh, yes. When I was in school at UW-Madison (mid-80s), Parthenon, and the other gyros place right across the street, were pretty much the only places open that late.
OK. I’m looking at your location, and I’m trying to figure out where in Europe or the Middle East you can’t get shawarmas/doners/gyros. Help?
I had no idea that gyros were so big in the US.
Anyhow, pronunciation is somewhere between ghiros and yiros.
What you’re all describing is a gyros pita. Gyros on its own is just the lamb or pork meat from a vertical kebab skewer, which can be served on its own as a main course. This meat is never minced, but is whole cuts of meat. The minced gyros meat seems to have caught on outside of Greece, a bit like the doner kebabs you get in the UK. You can also get souvlaki pitas, where the meat cooked on small skewers on the grill.
You’ve also got to get the pita bread right. It’s not that soft stuff which opens up like a pocket, but this stuff, which is quite thick. It is fried, or sometimes grilled, then rolled around the filling to create a tube.
The usual filling is tzatziki spread on, the meat, sliced red onion, a bit of tomato, salt and herbs. Electric Warrior says putting chips in is a northern Greek thing, but its pretty common round me in the southern Peloponnese. Common enough for me to request for them not to put any in.
Putting feta in is a strange abomination that I have never come across. Lettuce, cucumber and peppers are just about acceptable, but you will have to ask for them as extras. Tabasco is a great addition, but you will have to bring your own - either bought at great expense from a posh supermarket, or shipped over from the UK.
A short list of the best gyros pitas:
A stand that used to be by the old bridge over the Corinth Canal. It seems to have disappeared.
A shop just of Syntagma Square in Athens, going towards the Plaka.
A shop above which I lived on Vyronos (Byron) St, Halkida, Evia.
A shop that used to be just off the new square in Kalamata. It’s moved now and I haven’t tried it since.
Y’oughtta make a pilgremage up to Willow Glen, squeegee, to vist Opa!, the place I mentioned upthread. I don’t know if they’ll taste like what you remember from Chicago, but they taste damned good.
Also, at some time in May, there’s a Greek festival somewhere where the 880 meets The Alameda. I’m told some of the best area Greek restaurants have booths there. I have it marked in my calendar and I’m going to check it out.
Interesting! I never had anything but ‘normal’ ones in Athens and the islands, it was only up near Delphi that they were sticking fries in them. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Greece though so I’ll willingly admit I was mistaken.
As an addendum, does anyone know where I might be able to get doner kebab near DC?