I love Greek food. I grew up with Greek neighbors and spent many an evening and holiday (Greek Easter!) at their place, enjoying incredible food. When I moved to Chicago back in 1996 I was thrilled to discover a string of nice restaurant and cheap eateries in Greek Town. It is the one part of the city I travel to more than any other for food. And the other day I had a hankering for some gyros, but I had a short lunch break and walking to Greek Town was out of the question. A quick Google search turned up GRK Greek Kitchen, so I thought I would check it out.
Now, I will say, that the food was decent. It was not great, but it was not bad, either. I was a bit disappointed that they did not have on the menu a ready to order gyros plate. This is one of those places where you pick your dish, first your base (such as rice or pasta), then your meat, then your toppings. And that is fine. In fact, that is pretty spiffy as it allows easy customization of dishes. But, I would expect any Greek place to have a gyros plate option on the menu. That is not too much to ask, I think.
I ended up just getting gyros meat (a bit on the dry side) with onions, olives, and feta cheese. As a side I got Greek fries and a pita. I had to pay for the pita. It did not come with the dish. And when the young lady was preparing the fries she could not find the lemon juice and instead of saying anything to me about it just closed the container and passed it over to the cashier. Yeah, not good customer service. At least apologize for not having the lemon juice. Also, no tzatziki was included. Apparently in this Greek place if you order gyros you have to ask for tzatziki sauce. What is up with that?
The fries were really good, despite no lemon juice. Everything else was decidedly average. And that is OK. I am fine with average food. But not at nearly $14. Granted, the Greek fries were $3.50, or something like that, but still, nearly $14 for an average lunch? Not cool, bro.
In closing I will say that I did stay up almost all night thinking about this lunch experience, most of which time was spent on the toilet, contemplating the unpleasantness of a lunch that goes right through you and spends more time coming out the back side than it did going in through the entrance. Everything I have eaten in the past three days was stuff I eat all the time. This was the only thing new to my diet these past few days and my body wanted nothing to do with it. I will NOT be repeating. If you are close enough to go here do yourself a favor and take the time to walk over to Greek Town and get something better.
Oh, one last thing. Within minutes of having paid (with my debit card) I got an email from some company called SpringRewards, informing me that my account was credited for the cost of my lunch, as part of some rewards program. This was disturbing as I have never signed up for SpringRewards, have never given them my email address, and did not give my email address to the cashier at this place. It was, well, extremely odd. read more