Anyway, after some Googlin’ - yes, I Google for my lunch - I land on this joint called Gardens of Salonica and I figure, “Well, it’s not downtown.” That and that they have gyros was pretty much the only criteria I applied to my decision.
I get there and it’s a Tuesday lunch scenario. A retired couple at one table, a retired mom and her about-my-age daughter at another, and a kid running maître d’ and serving duties. He seats me, hands me a menu - the appetizer list alone told me I was in the wwwrrrooonnnggg motherfucking place - and a drink list and leaves to bring me back a glass of water from which I took only two sips because it tasted soapy. No big deal. Don’t bitch about it, just don’t drink it.
I ordered a Northstar pop, he thought they were out. I ordered a Whistler, he asked if I wanted Cola or Blood Orange Ginger. I thought that over and went with the funky one. He came back with the Northstar. It was Orange Cola. Best of both worlds.
I play sudoku on my phone while I wait for my food and the lady with her adult daughter starts asking the kid if he turned on the AC. He asks, “Sorry, what’s that?” And she starts hassling him over how it feels like it just got cold in there. I’m trying to find a place to put this 9 - I remember that I was working on the 9s - and I look up wondering, “Th’fuck? He’s bringing you your food and now you want him to turn the thermostat up?” I wish I had a barbed comment on menopause at the time but I didn’t. But really, don’t ever do that. Don’t hassle a kid to adjust the temperature for just you. There are other people in this motherfucker and it’s ninety goddamned degrees out. I appreciate a cool seventy. Your daughter appreciates a cool seventy. Your husband, who probably died just to get away from you because this is how you treat waitstaff, appreciated a cool seventy. Don’t open your mouth unless you’re shoveling souvlaki into it.
Anyway, out comes my gyro (with Greek fries) and I thank my server and I look at my little gyro and I think, “This is what I paid nine dollars for?” And then that voice in my head popped back in and reminded me, “Dude, this is what a healthy serving portion is,” and I hated everything about my life and I wanted to cry and quit my job and go home and lock the door and never go outside again and just wait for Andy next door to call the landlord when my apartment starts to smell funny.
I mean look at that thing. That’s a nine dollar gyro. Does that look like a nine dollar gyro? The gut busters from Trieste are twice the size and a dollar less. Here, here’s another pic from a different angle.
So I pick it up and - JESUS JENNY JONES WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO HOT!?!? WHY!? Did they just pull this motherfucker out of a volcano!? Why is it so hot!? Why!? I’m burning my fingers on my lunch! I don’t have fingerprints anymore, I’m John Doe from Se7en now! Fuck me. And it wasn’t like it was hot for a moment and cooled down, no! It stayed hot! And the fucked up part? It wasn’t hot in my mouth! What the fuck!? Did they just heat up the foil on the stove!? Why was it so hot!?
God… DAMNIT!
So how did it taste?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I gotta say, if you’ve ever had a gyro, you’ve had this gyro, aside from the burning your fucking fingers off part. The literature for the place reads like they make their tzatziki in-house but it doesn’t stand out. They sure slather plenty on but it’s not a stand out. The meat was meat. I guess there was that. It was on the sandwich. The tomatoes stood out flavor wise and visibly you could tell they had been sliced within the last hour. That’s about it.
You want to know about the fries? They were seasoned. Salt and pepper. Whoopity doo.
The best part about this lunch was my cane sugar orange cola.
Look, I wanted to like this place. I went in with high hopes. Maybe their octopus dinners are fantastic, who knows? I won’t know. Not with their prices. Or, you know, maybe I will. After all, I’m the dumb motherfucker who paid eleven twenty five for a half a gyro and a dozen fried tater slices. For eleven twenty five, you’d think my gyro, even if it is the equivalent of a goddamned Bagel Bite, would taste like something. For eleven twenty five, I could have had two Arby’s lunches without using coupons. Now I have to brown bag it the rest of the week, which I really should be doing anyhow but it’s only - pff - four bucks for the steamed veggies next door at the food court.
So, sorry, I can’t recommend this place. At least not for lunch. You want a gyro? Go to Trieste, still my number one, my only, my special baby-love-child.
That sounded gross.
Unless this was the seventies when everybody said shit like that.
I don’t know. How do I normally end this thing when I slag off a place?
Can I just leave?
Oh, I can just stop writing? OK.
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