camwyn | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear lunch sellers:

Do NOT label it a chicken gyro if it's strips of chicken inna pita. I don't care how much tzatzikis you put on it. It ain't a gyro unless it's made from shaven strips of ground up meat mixed with spices out the yin-yang.

I will JUST BARELY accept frozen strips of prefab ground meat mixed with spices.

JUST.

*mutter*

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amen SISTA!

Yrs. truly was born in Manhattan and raised in Astoria, Queens. Businesses within a few blocks of the 21st and Ditmars El were more likely to have signs in the Greek alphabet than in English. I know from gyros.

This ain't no gyro.

And, y'know... for some reason there is suddenly something very weird about realizing I was born in this borough, on this island. I don't know why. I mean, my mom had all the reason in the world for doing it- she was working for a pair of obi-gyn kenobies at the time and their practices were here, so when she went to give birth she had one of her bosses doing the attending duties at a Manhattan hospital- but ... all of a sudden it just seems strange that I have that kind of a link to Manhattan Island.

Don't mind me. I have some kind of cold or sinus infection or something and I think it's starting to mess with my head.

Lunch? I just had breakfast!

And I haven't had a really good gyros since the last time I went to the little hole-in-the-wall in The Arcade in downtown Providence, RI.

I miss the Hoboken Flame. Little rathole of a place, but they served the best gyros this side of the Hudson. They're gone now, to the best of my knowledge, and while Stella's Brick Oven Pizza on Grove Street is pretty good, it just ain't the same. *sigh*

Word.

Take-away places are also being rather freer with the definition of "focaccia" than I would like, as well. Bunch of jerks.

Oh, I started up the new comm. london_noir.

It's not a gyro unless the meat was spinning. One of those "hence the name" sort of things. 8-)

-- Lorrie

'zackly. Except not even spinning is going to turn recognizable grilled breast meat into a gyro, dammit.

*fumes*

Since the subject has been brought up....

I've lived a fair amount of places around the country and even overseas - and gyro is one of those words that is pronounced differently everywhere.

Since you grew up with Greek alphabets and all, please settle this once and for all for me - as I have been 'corrected' from any of these pronounciations to one of the others and at this point when I want a gyro, I just point for fear of saying it wrong.

Is it:

JEE-ro

GEE-ro (hard G)

JIE-ro (long I)

or GUY-ro?

In Sydney it's spelled "yeero", so I assume it's pronounced that way as well. I believe that in modern Greek gamma is indeed pronounced like a Y. I don't know whether that means Greek doesn't have a G sound, or it does and they use a combination of letters for it (like MP is the B sound, because beta is pronounced V).

Yee-ro, as corrected for me by Actual Hellenic Persons when I was growing up in Cleveland.

-- Lorrie

I hear ya. There's a place in my building that advertises gyros. The beef/lamb spit is prominently displayed, so I figured I'd be safe ordering one.

Wrong.

Pita - check.
Shaved meat - check.
Cream cheese?
Salsa?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

Worst lunch ever ....

Qu'est-ce que fuck?

I mean, I'm down with fusion cuisine and all that, but Thou Shalt Have Tzatiki Sauce. Salsa, or even the Amazing International Rooster (aka Sriacha sauce) can be offered if you like, but I want yogurt and I want cucumbers and I want spinnin' meat on a spinnin' stick, else thou shalt not bother, lest I smite thee righteously.

Amen.

-- Lorrie

Absolutely. A giro has got to come off a vertical rotisserie.

And tandoori chicken? Had better have a nodding acquaintance with the insides of a tandoor.

And the Big Spinning Hunk of Meat should be visible to the customers. Not the same without watching the cook shave your--wait, there's no way to finish that sentence without it sounding horrible. :)

Also, of course it should be lamb. Chicken will work in a pita, but don't even think of calling it a giro/gyro. Beef just barely works. Goat is for roti.

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