Critic's Review
I came upon Mini Pita Cafe totally by accident. My plan for the day was thwarted (you'll read about this in a couple of days), and I came here to see if the Pizza Place next door was making progress. It's not. Why would you build out a pizzeria where there are like 10 of them for same in Eastern Broward?
In the old Carcione's Pizza space there's a new place that fell under the radar. When I walked inside I as kind of surprised.
Surprised because this place is only a few years old, and it looks 30 years old. A counter, a grill and some tables; they do have a dining room so you can eat in here. Carcione's was just a counter (and quite a dump).
I ordered a Gyro (pronounced Yee-ro) with Tzatziki on the side, and the Egyptian lentil soup caught my eye, so I ordered a cup.
This is a real low-budget operation; paper handwritten tickets, she actually used a calculator to add up the check. Then she walked the check back to the grill. Something else you need to know is that there are no Meditarranean people running this place. When my order was ready and she said "Jie-ro is ready" I knew for sure.
They also have no take out packaging for the Pitas. I had to be very careful on the driver home as to not spill the soup.
Not a bad amount of food for $10, although no red onions on the Gyro was disappointing. I tasted the Tzatziki; it tasted like salty sour cream.And there wasn't very much of it. Luckily I had cucumber and garlic; no but no sour cream or greek yogurt, so I'd have to settle for half a sandwich.
I'm not a proponent of lettuce on a gyro. They also put dill and some strange spices on it. And the gyro meat wasn't sliced uniformly. It was like one huge slice and a bunch of chunks.
The soup was completely wrong; Egyptian lentil soup is made with red lentils. And the menu says with "light tomato sauce". Do you SEE any tomatoes or tomato sauce?
The soup was totally bland and mushy so I saw no reason to eat it. I put it in the fridge and I'd try to fix it some other time. I have a gallon of fresh stock in the fridge so I may just toll it.
All in all, the Gyro was decent. Better than some I've gotten in this town, but nothing I'll be having again.
Conclusion
I don't know why people open Greek restaurants when they don't really know how to make greek food. I had to wait quite a while for my order; they struggled to deal with 2 take out orders and 1 table. I can't imagine how this 1990s type operation could manage a busy dining room.