Olympia Gyro and Flying Monkey

Last night the wife and I made it a movie night! For the millionth time we broke our rule and watched a movie we both have seen before. We watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which ends up being a perfect segue into reviewing Reading Terminal Market’s Olympia Gyro.

Olympia Gyro

I have walked past Olympia Gyro dozens of times but have never stopped in to say hello to their Athenian goddess-like gyros. Olympia is situated nearest the entrance on 12^th street and Arch. One of the biggest draws to Olympia, is that it has seating available to dine in and is located in a less trafficked aisle of the Market, giving the eater a more peaceful grazing session.

Unlike a main character in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” I eat meat. However, my wife, who dined with me at Olympia has never had lamb because she refuses to eat baby animals. Lamb is usually the primary meat in gyros, thus my wife has never had a gyro. One of the best parts about the Market is that most places will give you free samples if you ask. The sample of the gyro meat convinced my wife to give a gyro a chance! Olympia Gyro’s meat consists of a beef and lamb hybrid, delivered to us from the top of Mount Olympus by a Zeus lightening bolt.

The Gyro

My wife and I ordered the gyro sandwich and were very pleased. The gyro consisted of gyro meat, tomatoes, onions, and tzatziki sauce (sour cream, cucumbers and garlic dressing) on pita bread. There was plenty of meat on the sandwich, and was not greasy like the local gyro carts serve throughout the city. The meat and tzatziki, make the gyro and were the dominating the flavors. The gyro would absolutely fill you up and it took less than a minute to make, before I blinked a gyro was in front of me. No lines and immediately receiving your food is great but if I am being 100% truthful, $8.25 for a gyro is steep when comparing it to the many street carts that offer gyros for less than $5. 

Operation Dessert Storm

Flying Monkey

My wife cannot leave the market without dessert…it cannot be done. Finally we stopped at the Flying Monkey to get their famous whoopie pies. I would describe a whoopie as a hand-held cake sandwich. I ordered the Classic Whoopie, which consists of two round mounds of moist chocolate cake sandwiched between a delicious cream cheese based filling, very similar to the icing one would put on a carrot cake. We purchased a S’mores Bar as well only because we needed to reach the $5 credit card limit. The S’mores Bar was a hybrid of a brownie and a s’more, the bar was layered with marshmallow, graham crackers and chocolate chips, it changed my life. 

I would absolutely go back to the Flying Monkey and explore the menu further. Olympia Gyro is worth the visit, but I won’t be mad if you skip it.