LG's Uptown Eatery

Critic's Review

Last year I saw that the previous restaurant here, BBQ Box, was up for sale and that there was an ongoing issue with the CO. I questioned whether it was wise to buy a restaurant with such a case pending. "Lisa" wrote us and seemed confident that the issues were not a concern to them. To me, buying a restaurant with no CO would give me pause, but you can review the case yourself. It seems to me that a ruling on whether a restaurant was allowed to operate at the location would be a concern to new owners of the restaurant.

I saw some pretty nice looking food on their website, so I thought I'd check out their "Traditional Gyro". After the mess I got last week I was pining for something decent, and I still had some Tzatziki lefterover in case I needed it.

The traffic disaster that is Fort Lauderdale resulted in it taking way too long to get here. 3 light cycles at commercial and I95 because some moron jammed on her brakes at a yellow light nearly causing a multi-car pileup.

Inside the place was more dreary than expected; they've painted over the red with green; no matter as I wasn't eating in. I ordered a Gyro with sauce on the side, and that was that. They had a "special" for a Gyro, Fries and a Drink which only saved me 50 cents and I really didn't want fries.

LG's Uptown Inside

I took a seat and took in the scenery. Decent music playing, and Fox News on the TV. Very unusual for South Florida.

LG's Uptown Tables

10 minutes later the food is ready and I'm out the door. When I got home, I opened it up.

LG's Uptown Gyro

Ok, not exactly overflowing with stuff; maybe it was all packed into the back? At least they got the sauce on the side right.

But then I removed the wrapper and opened up the pita.

Gyro with Nothing on it

This is a "traditional" gyro? How could this happen? Nobody could forget to put EVERYTHING on the Gyro by accident. I checked my check, to make sure there wasn't a miscommunication. But no, the check looked correct.

Check

Even more horrifying than the lack of gyro stuff was the meat. They looked like some sort of breakfast sausage. All exactly the same length, width and thickness. There's no way this was freshly made stuff. I noticed that they had an ad for Grecian Delight on their page, so I checked the vendor's website. I found what I believe is the Gyro meat!

Frozen Gyro Meat Vendor

Sort of like Steak'Um for Gyros. It's probably not a good idea to divulge your food sources where you're using this kind of stuff.

The cole slaw was purple; very creamy. It tasted better than it looked.

LG's Uptown Cole Slaw

The tzatziki sauce wasn't bad; a bit crunchier than it should be but it had the right tang to it. I like more salt in it but that's easy to add. The gyro however wasn't every good. I added tomatoes and red onions and even tried it with some of my own Tzatziki, but the meat didn't taste quite right. Sort of lambish, but also sort of Park Sausage-ish.

I went back to their facebook page to look at the pictures I'd seen and the Gyro clearly didn't look like the pre-made breakfast sausage I got on mine. There's a way to find stolen photos; this is the photo they're using for a Gyro:

NOT their Gyro pic.

You can find this picture on eat24hours.com

The picture they're using for Brisket:

Brisket pic stolen from another site

You can find this at foodpeoplewant.com

You have no chance of getting food that looks like that in this place.

Conclusion

So how is using pictures of other people's food to lure people into your restaurant anything but false advertising (as well as a copyright violation)? They also uploaded the gyro picture to Yelp.

Frankly when I first saw the Gyro I felt bad that I was going to have to give them a bad review, but after I saw the fake pictures I had a change of heart. People like this are exactly why I started this web site. People that are trying to cheat you need to be exposed.