Niko Niko's

If you've been in Houston for sometime and hung out with locals, one of the MUSTS is to go to Niko Niko's. When I first moved here, the place was a little walk up kinda spot. You walk up, they have an awning over your head. If it rains, you know that's gonna suck.

Later on, they enclosed the awning part and added seatings. While it is definitely hard to get the seating you want, but it's tiny and you know the food will be great. Fast forward several years, they totally done up the place where everything, from the original counter from wood to marble, to having a/c everywhere. Increased seating on both sides of the building, added a real parking lot and seatings on the outside too. Not to mention, in the summer they have fans that spray mist and in the winter they have the heater stand so you can sit out there and enjoy the Montrose pass you by.

As for food, while they constantly rolling out new stuff like the honey balls, turulu's, eggplant boats. I always go back to the original gyro plate. The meat was grilled to perfection, goes super well with their seasoned oven potato and the little dolma that comes with your plate. Now, the trick about the potato is that some of them aren't in the oven long enough and it's still hard, but if you got the ones that soaked in their sauce long enough, it's easy to cut and the spice they put on there, it's delicious. You slice a bit of it, take a slice of gyro meat, put that on top of a pita slice and add some tzatiki sauce, it's divine!

Trick about going there is to either go before or after the main dinner time. If you decided to go at 7pm, you'll be in line for about 15-20 mins. Lines are usually out the door and parking is hard to come by, you just have to bring your patience with you.

If you work in the downtown area, they do have a location at Market Square. They also built out a nice seating area for you to enjoy your gyro sandwich. I think the pricing and the whole set up is a tad of rip off. The price of the gyro sandwich at Market Square is more than what you get at the Montrose location. On top of that, you don't get as much food as you do there. When they say it's a sandwich, they really mean just the sandwich. That said, the Market Square location does serve breakfast and for lunch they have special home made potato chips that are known to sell out daily. Same thing about the timing, if you go when everyone else is hungry, you'll be waiting, and in this heat... you may not want to do that. I've once waited 45 mins for my food. So, watch your time, especially if you have a less flexible lunch hour. Time it so that you're not fighting with the Courthouse workers.

Niko Niko's
2520 Montrose
Houston, Texas
713-528-GYRO
http://nikonikos.com/