Food and beer work together best where local food and local beer meet - there's a natural belonging to the two which means they effortlessly pair up, often side-by-side with weather and place: ploughmans and a pint of bitter in a pub garden, carbonnade and a dubbel outside a small Belgian cafe, cheeseburger and a double IPA in a brewpub. The local beers complement and fit neatly with everything around them.
The Greeks know what they are doing when it comes to kebabs. The turning spit of pork is carved to give hot, tender slices of meat and big chunks of fat, some soft, some crispy like crackling. That's a great start. With this you get fresh, garlicky tzatziki, sweet tomatoes, crunchy red onions, ketchup and mustard and chips. Yes, chips INSIDE the kebab. Incredible. It's everything you want and need in a meal and it's all wrapped up in a thick, soft pitta, freshly grilled and slightly charred. Delicious man food.
It's not a grey, sweaty indefinable lump (although many are served by something of this description), it doesn't come with chilli sauce, mate, it's not the reserve of a blurry-eyed 2am re-fuel and it's not served in a styrofoam box. A gyros is what all kebabs wish they were.
And, of course, the only thing to ever drink with it is a Mythos (crisp yet soft carbonation, full bodied, refreshingly cold, a subtle sweetness - it deals with grilled and salty food with uncomplicated ease, as if born to do this very thing).
It's a fast food FABPOW brought to you straight from Greece. But don't try this one at home: it only works whilst sitting outside in the sun, the heat warming your back as you dribble tzatziki down your chin, thinking that there could be nothing more immediately satisfying (in a primal, messy, eat-with-your-hands kind of way) to eat in the whole world.
I love that combo!
ReplyDeleteive found Gyros differ depending on where in greece you go, some use pork that they flame grill then slice, others use meat thats been minced and formed into thin sausage shapes, others use the donner meat style lump of meat.
each works just as well as the other and as of yet ive not had a bad gyros pitta anywhere in greece.
Excellent stuff. Randomly, I made something very similar last night (more Kofte than Gyro) ... I'll blog it soon.
ReplyDeleteChips in with the meat though! That's just odd.
Bring on 6th August and I'll be one short hop away eating the same...can't wait
ReplyDeleteThe point about food in Greece is that it's (almost entirely) family-made, by people who have been up early collecting/buying the freshest ingredients, which is easily the most important part, and they stick to what they know best: you won't get much menu variety, but it will always be good. Of dozens of meals I've had in Greece, I can think of only one over the years that was disappointing.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure about the Mythos, though: it may be the best of a very poor bunch, but that's all I could say for it.
Hey! I thought you could only find the chips inside these things in Belgium! Around here it's almost impossible to have one without chips... But of course it's almost impossible to have anything without chips in Belgium hahaha.
ReplyDeleteGood man. Only a few weeks ago we were shunning the AI hotel buffet and gorging on gyros and Mythos every night. Anywhere in London do 'em?
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