Even Chef Jose Mier Has Trouble Pronouncing It
First let’s get the pronunciation out-of-the-way. I have it on the best authority it’s pronounced YEE-RO. So if you’re pronouncing it as JAI-RO as in gyroscope you’re way off. Regardless of how you pronounce it this is another one of the top favorite foods in the world and I guess I’m on a Greek kick because I just wrote about another famous Greek dish, moussaka.
Gyros are famous not only in Greece but around the world and it’s hard not to find a place you’re town that serves them. Pronunciation aside the name of this food actually does come from the Greek root word meaning “to rotate” and if you’ve ever been to a Greek restaurant you’ll see great hunks of meat rotating on skewers. The chefs in these restaurants continuously cut the meat off of the skewers as it cooks and use it as the basis for gyros, putting it on top of pita bread.
The other ingredients include lettuce, tomatoes, and sliced onions. However, it’s not complete without the tzatziki sauce. This is what makes a gyro a gyro. Any good Greek chef worth his salt is going to have his or her own special recipe for gyros and indeed for the tzatziki sauce. The sauce by the way is a combination of Greek yogurt, cucumbers, salt, garlic and olive oil and it truly makes the dish what it is. This dish is so popular you’ll have no problem finding any number of recipes on the Internet and thanks to YouTube there’s probably 1000 videos on how to make your own gyro.
I live in Sun Valley, California and another one of my favorite Greek restaurants is Rodini Park in North Hollywood (this one is our Sun Valley neighbor to the west) it’s located at 11049 W Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601. You can check out their website here.
