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Seattle's Gyro Shops: An Incomplete Overview
[caption id="attachment_8676" align="alignleft" width="375" caption="Photo by Flickr user Smeerch"]
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Traveling to Berlin a few years ago made me a wildly enthusiastic fan of doner kebap—a ubiquitous street food in that city, which has the third largest Turkish population of any city in the world. Thin slices of meat carved from a pile stacked on a vertical spit—the term translates literally as "rotating roast"—are piled onto a thick piece of flatbread and topped with a salad of chopped cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumbers and a creamy sauce—usually garlic sauce or yogurt. Unfortunately, I've only been able to find one shop that offers authentic doner in Seattle, Turkish Delight in the Pike Place Market—and the price of their sandwich, at more than $11, made me balk and back slowly out the door.
What Seattle does have tons of is gyro shops. Gyros, the Greek version of doner, are generally made with lamb, beef , or a combination, and are similar enough to Turkis doner that they satiate my craving. A good gyro must satisfy several different qualities: It has to be cheap (under $8, but preferably more like $5); the meat has to be tender enough to cut with a fork, and never ground; the tzatziki (cucumber-yogurt sauce) has to be tangy but still cooling; and the bread has to be thick and just-toasted.
Over the past few weeks, I've tried more than half a dozen different gyros around Seattle— a number that, to judge from Yelp listings, amounts to only a tiny sampling of Seattle's gyro universe. Here are some of the best.
Aladdin Gyro-cery
4139 University Way NE
The meat for Aladdin's gyros is shaved to order from a rotating spit stacked with a glistening combination of lamb and beef. The cooks at Aladdin aren't shy with the spices, an alluring combo of garlic, cumin, oregano, coriander and some flavors I couldn't place. The meat is a little on the oily side, but succulent and piping hot; the pitas are thick and grilled to order; and the lettuce and tomato salad that tops the pita is crisp and cold, dressed with just the right amount of zippy yogurt sauce. The generous bowls of rice come loaded with spices and topped with a huge dollop of yogurt sauce. Fries are better than average for the Ave, and the price is unbeatable: $5 for a jumbo gyro, or $7 for a gyro, fries or rice, and a cold soda. Get it to go or prepare to ignore the overwhelming smell of cleaning fluid and the dust on the floor.
Sabra Mediterranean Sandwiches and Juices
1916 Pike Place #14
Tucked in next to a sunny courtyard in an obscure corner of Pike Place Market, Sabra is the kind of place you stumble upon looking for a quick lunch and end up staying for an hour. The lamb in my gyro wasn't the most tender I've ever tried, but the sandwich itself—wrapped burrito style in a hot, thick pita, topped with a bit of tahini and a could-be-colder lettuce and tomato salad, and subtly spiced—was comfort food in portable form, and the sunny courtyard made up for the service, which was thoughtful (one of the cooks brought out our silverware, which we'd forgotten) but on the slow side. Stay away from the potato pancakes, unless you want to spend the rest of the afternoon wiping grease off your fingers. Plenty of vegetarian and vegan options; all lunch sandwiches and plates between $7 and about $11.
Ali Baba
408 Broadway East
I've eaten at this place dozens of times (fortunately/unfortunately for me, it's right across the street from my gym) and never once been disappointed. Ali Baba's gyros, a lamb/beef combo, fall right between Aladdin and Sabra on the tenderness-spice continuum, and feature one of the zippiest, coolingest tzatzikis in the city. Falafel cakes, available on their own or in a sandwich, are heavily flecked with herbs, and the chicken gyro (my usual order) is one of the best I've ever had, with thin slices of meat so tender and tasty you almost doubt it's chicken. Middle Eastern dance music on the stereo is a bonus, as is the view of Broadway, if you like that sort of thing. The only downside is that, for what you get, it's kind of expensive: About $8 for a meal with a small side of rice or soup (a brothy lentil), more like $12 for the platters.
Also recommended: Cherry Street Coffee House (locations all over downtown Seattle; my regular stop is at 2121 First Ave.), where you can get a delicious, cheap lamb and beef gyro with a side of sublime, ethereal lemon and egg soup to go ($8.95, $6.45 without soup or salad), and Zaina (1619 3rd Ave, 103 Cherry St, 2800 First Ave.), which I can't quite recommend for their skimpy gyros, but love, love, love for their lemony baba ghanoush and crispy falafel sandwiches.
Some other gyro spots I'm looking forward to trying: Kokoras Greek Grill in West Seattle (6400 1/2 California Ave SW), the Gyro Hut in Northgate (11020 8th Ave NE), and Mr. D's Greek Deli in Pike Place Market (1518 Pike Place).
[/caption]Traveling to Berlin a few years ago made me a wildly enthusiastic fan of doner kebap—a ubiquitous street food in that city, which has the third largest Turkish population of any city in the world. Thin slices of meat carved from a pile stacked on a vertical spit—the term translates literally as "rotating roast"—are piled onto a thick piece of flatbread and topped with a salad of chopped cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumbers and a creamy sauce—usually garlic sauce or yogurt. Unfortunately, I've only been able to find one shop that offers authentic doner in Seattle, Turkish Delight in the Pike Place Market—and the price of their sandwich, at more than $11, made me balk and back slowly out the door.
What Seattle does have tons of is gyro shops. Gyros, the Greek version of doner, are generally made with lamb, beef , or a combination, and are similar enough to Turkis doner that they satiate my craving. A good gyro must satisfy several different qualities: It has to be cheap (under $8, but preferably more like $5); the meat has to be tender enough to cut with a fork, and never ground; the tzatziki (cucumber-yogurt sauce) has to be tangy but still cooling; and the bread has to be thick and just-toasted.
Over the past few weeks, I've tried more than half a dozen different gyros around Seattle— a number that, to judge from Yelp listings, amounts to only a tiny sampling of Seattle's gyro universe. Here are some of the best.
Aladdin Gyro-cery
4139 University Way NE
The meat for Aladdin's gyros is shaved to order from a rotating spit stacked with a glistening combination of lamb and beef. The cooks at Aladdin aren't shy with the spices, an alluring combo of garlic, cumin, oregano, coriander and some flavors I couldn't place. The meat is a little on the oily side, but succulent and piping hot; the pitas are thick and grilled to order; and the lettuce and tomato salad that tops the pita is crisp and cold, dressed with just the right amount of zippy yogurt sauce. The generous bowls of rice come loaded with spices and topped with a huge dollop of yogurt sauce. Fries are better than average for the Ave, and the price is unbeatable: $5 for a jumbo gyro, or $7 for a gyro, fries or rice, and a cold soda. Get it to go or prepare to ignore the overwhelming smell of cleaning fluid and the dust on the floor.
Sabra Mediterranean Sandwiches and Juices
1916 Pike Place #14
Tucked in next to a sunny courtyard in an obscure corner of Pike Place Market, Sabra is the kind of place you stumble upon looking for a quick lunch and end up staying for an hour. The lamb in my gyro wasn't the most tender I've ever tried, but the sandwich itself—wrapped burrito style in a hot, thick pita, topped with a bit of tahini and a could-be-colder lettuce and tomato salad, and subtly spiced—was comfort food in portable form, and the sunny courtyard made up for the service, which was thoughtful (one of the cooks brought out our silverware, which we'd forgotten) but on the slow side. Stay away from the potato pancakes, unless you want to spend the rest of the afternoon wiping grease off your fingers. Plenty of vegetarian and vegan options; all lunch sandwiches and plates between $7 and about $11.
Ali Baba
408 Broadway East
I've eaten at this place dozens of times (fortunately/unfortunately for me, it's right across the street from my gym) and never once been disappointed. Ali Baba's gyros, a lamb/beef combo, fall right between Aladdin and Sabra on the tenderness-spice continuum, and feature one of the zippiest, coolingest tzatzikis in the city. Falafel cakes, available on their own or in a sandwich, are heavily flecked with herbs, and the chicken gyro (my usual order) is one of the best I've ever had, with thin slices of meat so tender and tasty you almost doubt it's chicken. Middle Eastern dance music on the stereo is a bonus, as is the view of Broadway, if you like that sort of thing. The only downside is that, for what you get, it's kind of expensive: About $8 for a meal with a small side of rice or soup (a brothy lentil), more like $12 for the platters.
Also recommended: Cherry Street Coffee House (locations all over downtown Seattle; my regular stop is at 2121 First Ave.), where you can get a delicious, cheap lamb and beef gyro with a side of sublime, ethereal lemon and egg soup to go ($8.95, $6.45 without soup or salad), and Zaina (1619 3rd Ave, 103 Cherry St, 2800 First Ave.), which I can't quite recommend for their skimpy gyros, but love, love, love for their lemony baba ghanoush and crispy falafel sandwiches.
Some other gyro spots I'm looking forward to trying: Kokoras Greek Grill in West Seattle (6400 1/2 California Ave SW), the Gyro Hut in Northgate (11020 8th Ave NE), and Mr. D's Greek Deli in Pike Place Market (1518 Pike Place).
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