Mona's Cafe: I finally found a spyee-row (SPAM+gyro)

Today I visited Mona's Cafe on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Mona's is a Middle Eastern restaurant with the typical aspects of American versions of this cuisine, though with some Greek American aspects coming in (as you'll see in this review). My meal consisted of: a bowl of red lentil soup, a falafel appetizer, and a gyro sandwich.

The red lentil soup, which often leaves me underwhelmed at Ann Arbor Middle Eastern restaurants, was the best I've had. It was served with small (1/2" square) pita chips, which were to the soup what oyster crackers are to chowder (a great textural touch). Instead of the overly lemony, thin broth served elsewhere, Mona's soup presented a depth of flavors and was perfectly balanced in acidity, and with a great consistency for a legume soup. Grade: A

The falafel was OK, served as 6 small, 2" diameter domes. The dipping sauce, I assumed, would be tzatziki, but it seemed instead to be a tahini sauce. Grade: C

Now for the gyro: It was good. First, it was served with the tahini sauce, and I would have preferred a straight up tzatziki (which I love). The sandwich was loaded with gyro meat, and I'm sure this was the same factory formed concoction about which I've previously written (hence the title of this post). It was a large pita sandwich, with onions, tomatoes, and pickles. The pickles with the tahini made the sandwich much more like a shawarma than a typical gyro. Grade: B (maybe an A with tzatziki, and the grade ignores the SPAMish origin of the meat).

Finally, the value was outstanding. I had a lot of food leftover, total meal cost, with tip, and no drink: $15. Not bad.

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