Mar 07 '07

Desk Test: Petit Balkan Street Meat Holds Own Against Huge Gyros Hústál

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Delivery 1: Ambrózia Gyros tál birkából (Ambrózia mutton gyro plate, Ft 990); Pieskovica (Pljeskavica, Ft 790); Görög saláta pirítóssal (Greek salad with toast, Ft 590)
From: Ambrózia Étterem, via Netpincér.hu
Delivery 2: Gyros tál csípősen (Spicy gyros platter, Ft 1,150)
From: Noa Gyros és Pizza , via Netpincér.hu
The Lowdown: Over the past few years, the gyros - or kebab - has become one of the key street eating options in Budapest, especially in the wee hours. Because of this, we suspect that many in the city's burgeoning online eating community may shy away from such items when ordering for delivery to home or office. If so, that's a mistake.

Over the course of two recent lunches, we tried out a few e-gyros products, and found them to be excellent alternatives to our normal office fare of pizzas, sandwiches, Chinese and the like. Here are some that we'd order again:

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First, all the way up top is a pic of part of a birka gyros from the apparently online-only Ambrózia Étterem. While we are not sure if they really mean "mutton" as opposed to "lamb" in the description of the dish (strictly speaking, lamb is bárány) the meat definitely came from something that at one point went "baah." And in Hungary this is unusual, even if it's not as tasty as this birka/bárány was. Likewise for the Pieskovica/Pljeskavica (above), which came smothered in Ajvar, the medium-spicy hot sauce found wherever South Slavs are served. Our only complaint is that both items could have been a little bigger, and the pita the things came in were coming apart by the time we got our hands on them. The accompanying Greek salad (below), while not containing all the key traditional ingredients, was also quite fine.

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For something similar, but completely different, consider the enormous spicy gyros plate pictured second from the top. This came from the Noa Gyros és Pizza, which we think is the same thing as the Noa Grill House, a.k.a. the Noa Café. While it's a shame that Noa only offers this plate with chicken hús rather than birká or bárány, it's still damn good, and at just over Ft 1,000, a bargain. And it's not like you are ever going to eat this thing while walking down the street at 3:00 a.m.

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