 Pita Inn
Fast food for the soul. Pita Inn serves a variety of great Mediterranean fare, specializing in things like gyros, falafil, hummos, baklava, etc, cooking everything to order and quick, too. I had heard a lot of people rave about this place, which is sort of a cross between one of those "crazy" hot dog stands in any major city (Wieners Never Quit, or something) and the best little Greek place in any given college town (Stavros's Shish Kebob Spaceship or whatever). It's authentic to the core (white people being the minority of customers, from what I could tell – and thank God for that, you Aryan bastards), very inexpensive (1983 prices in full effect) and very, very good. I was not disappointed even though I went to Pita Inn with high expectations, and I will definitely go there again. It's a bit out of the way but worth it.
The experience was marred a bit by a woman sitting in the entryway vestibule selling chocolate bars for charity, which does me AND charity both no good, as I don't eat no chocolate, but her unsuccessful attempt at a guilt trip didn't help. If she'd had a cripple with her, I'd have kicked, and kicked hard. But regardless, my meal was quite good. I had a falafil sandwich, small hummos with pita bread, and a large lemonade. All this for $4.86, quite a bargain … filling and delicious. Both the falafil and the hummos were kind of greasy, but it was fast food, after all. The meal was prepared pretty quickly even though it was busy, and I received far less scorn for being there than I expected. The dining area was comfortable, although without music, from what I recall.
The menu was pretty extensive, offering a lot of good choices for consumers of flesh as well as non-flesh foods, and I should point out that the lemonade was goddamn fantastic. I am very pleased with having ordered a lemonade instead of a Sprite. You see, I was very close to getting a Sprite but decided to go "x-treme." What a good decision that turned out to be. I was pretty much beaming for the rest of the day … I bet people thought I'd gotten laid in the back of my buddy's car with a neighborhood "bad girl" like in My Tutor. Pita Inn is highly recommended for good non-burger food on the go, and I shall surely return there with my friends, but we won't make it a hang-out, unless we can find a Fonz-caliber ringleader who would give us the proper credibility.
Review by Hermina Bushby, October 1998 |