Meesha’s Berkeley Gyros

yummy but kinda pricey
im always still hungry after 1 egg gyro
get a plate dish instead, its more food

I’ve only had Mediterranean food a few times, so I’m not expert on the cuisine yet. Wally’s in Emeryville spoiled me so when I do encounter the cuisine, the bar is set high.
Meesha’s Gyros is on the other side of the spectrum. I ordered a chicken gyro and was thoroughly disappointed. It wasn’t even that cheap! For the $ 5 – 6, I could’ve slurped on some noodles across the way.
Service was standard, so their only hope was food. Unfortunately, the vegetables were bland and the chicken burned.
Final Call:
I hear it’s closed now. If it’s not, you should go elsewhere with your dough.

years before i even know what kind of food meesha’s was, i was told as a freshman to come here and say 3 words — «meesha’s chicken plate».
for 10 years i’ve uttered the same 3 words every time i walk in. only this past saturday did i branch out and order a beef gyro in addition.
considering location and proximity of other options in this same genre, the awesomeness in terms of taste of the chicken plate (and gyro), and the usually short wait (unless it’s post football game, then all bets are off).

Ed. L wrote, «Ordered a lamb gyro and it was pretty bland. By bland I mean your mouth is tasting 90% the flour form the gyro bread and the water from the iceberg lettuce».
I know it’s not protocol to cut and paste someone else’s review, but talk about «took the words right out of my mouth». I was about to type those same thoughts when I saw his review of the dismal meal. I just wasn’t feelin’ it at all, and I (heart) gyros. It tasted like a low-​fat or non-​fat version of a gyro… yet… it wasn’t…

Ordered a lamb gyro and it was pretty bland. By bland I mean your mouth is tasting 90% the flour form the gyro bread and the water from the iceberg lettuce. Even with the hummus, there was a lack of flavor. They are also pretty skimp on the meat so that could be a factor. For about $ 7 – 8, you can get an immensley more satisfying meal at any other location inside Asian Ghetto.

I went here once, and never returned. The lamb gyro I bought from Meesha’s was disastrous — too dry, too salty, too small. Definitely not the juicy, fresh, tender wrap of pure awesome that gyros can, and should, be.
Conclusion: «Eek! Methinks not.» Avoid Meesha’s. If you’re looking for an alternative, try Sunrise Deli on Bancroft. I can vouch for their great falafels and lamb shawarma.

The pictures are deceiving.
Meesha’s gyros are probably worse than a chain restaurant’s gyros. Anyone ever had Daphne’s Greek Café gyros? Then you know Daphne’s is shit and this place is worse somehow. The hell?
I’ve had about everything here so I can attest to its plates and crappy-​mc-​crap-​wraps. You would also think the prices would be student-​friendly for such low quality food. WRONG. Overpriced.
The most common wrap people get is probably the chicken. Granted the chicken shawarma is sitting there and spinning, but it sure tastes like crap when they put it all together in a wrap with onions, tomato, cucumber, and monster portion of tzatziki sauce. The sauce basically drowns out the flavor of everything else so you might as well go to La Burrita across the street to get a chicken burrito with a shit-​ton of sour cream. Wooo chicken wrap!
I’ve had the lamb too, and its basically a little patty of «lamb» that they grill up. To me it looked and tasted like a bland hamburger I could get from McDonalds. Fail.
Aside from their wraps, I’ve decided to go a few times to give them a chance on their «student special» plates and combo plates. My mistake. The student special plates sure are «student special» because they must know we’re super poor and hungry, thus give us a smaller amount than usual and overcharge for it too. Oh wait…
Combo plates don’t go very far either because it’s like mc-​crap-​wrap on a plate spilled all over and drenched with more sauce so it’s just less portable and harder to eat.
If you like Meesha’s for Middle Eastern food, you must also like Panda Express for Chinese food, because they are almost synonymous, except that Panda Express actually tastes good on a guilty pleasure even if it isn’t really Chinese food. Oh and you can’t bring any outside food in here as well, and they get really pissed off so there goes your friendly dining experience.
Go to Sunrise Deli on Bancroft instead and get your money’s worth for real Middle Eastern food.

Ok– I’ve only had the chicken plate.
And that’s all I need to have.
Imagine chicken so moist and tender that you could swear it’s a flaky white fish. The salad is a bit mediocre but that little pat of garlic yumminess makes up for it. The potato salad is decent, not riddle with mayo and the rice is also very good.
A lot of people bemoan the change of ownership, but I haven’t really noticed.
It’s a little annoying that the guy there had a mini-​freakout when my boy brought some steve’s in. Steve’s doesnt care what you eat in their restaurant, but apparently it’s a big health code issue for Meesha’s.

I studied and lived in Berkeley for one year. I still remembered when I first found this place I thought it’s really like my middle Eastern heaven. I loved the sour flavor and all the vegi inside a gyro. I would have given it five plus stars if I wrote a review at that time.
Things have changed, since I moved to San Francisco… No, to be more accurate, I guess I should say, «I» have changed. I haven’t been back to Berkeley campus for a while and after checking Unilocal reviews to make sure of this place and the good reviews. when I had a chance to meet a friend there I couldn’t wait to recomend this place for lunch. But I couldn’t eve finish my gyro. I guess I can only say I have changed because my bf brought me to have many a fine culinary experiences. or four stars is really Berkeley standard for this place; it only gets two star according to san francisco standard…

Here little bitty lamb. Here little tender lamb. Come to mumma. My what small feet you have. And your tender shoulders of chuck, they are quite lean. It’s been a tough year, has it? That lamb kebab they are forming out of your succulent flesh, it’s suffering from the harsh winter and is very thin.
The photos were so deceiving. I thought I’d get these round juicy reformed ground seasoned lamb chunks but instead I got 4 very thin lamb patties. It was like what you’d get at the cafeteria in grade school lunches. The guy taking my money and serving me wasn’t wearing blue eyeshadow and he also wasn’t wearing a dress with nursing shoes so it wasn’t exactly like being served by the lunch ladies.
If you couldn’t guess already, it was the lamb plate that broke my heart. It was drowning in the yogurt sauce which was too tart and overwhelmed such a defenseless amount of meat. The salad was small but I wished they’d served the lamb on top of a bigger bed of salad. How much can salad cost? Much less than the meat. Most people opt for the bed of rice. I saw many a people walk out with trays of such-​and-​such meat plate on a bed of rice. I’m asian, I eat too much rice as it is.
A very nice guy did give me some advice as I stood aimlessly outside looking at the menu. He pointed to the 4 take-​away containers he was holding and said. «hey, you ever been here before? No? This is what you gotta get, right here. The chicken plate, like this (points to the Meesha Plate Special). It’s so good. It’s what I get, all the time. You gotta try it.» And then he walked out of my life forever again.
I should have heeded his advice. But no, I’m like that small child in the play group that has to see for themselves that you shouldn’t stack chairs higher than 3 especially if they’re wooden and not designed to stack. It was like licking a frozen flag pole and then suffering the consequences.
A hoagie was spared because I wanted to try this place. An honorable hoagie, tried and true, who never did anything except try to please the people who buy it. I could not give that hoagie the attention I saved all month for it. Instead, I found myself a little lamb hussy and proceeded to be disappointed by the lack of substantial balls in my mouth. To quote Nigella, «Balls without a decent amount of salt are a great disappointment.» I wonder what she would have said about balls that lacked heft.

Granted, it’s not open quite as late as the rest of the Asian Ghetto, but the gyros are very tasty. Much better than, say, what you might find at Daphne’s.
However, I wish the gyros would be more filling for the price I pay for them. The only difference between a small and a large seems to be that the large has some rice in it. For ~$ 4 (over 6 for large) I wish I could get a little more. Maybe a side dish or something. However, the student plates are a good deal for the amount you get.
Service is pretty good though. The guy that runs the place is friendly and has character.
I recommend you try this place if you haven’t already, if you’re in the area.

This place USED to be one of my favorites. I loooooved the chicken plate with the eggplant (baba ganouge?!! sp?!! I know I butchered it)
BUT. It changed hands about a year or so ago, and it just hasn’t been the same since. The chicken is no longer slow roasted on those rotating bbqs, and it’s juicier now but the flavors just aren’t quite there.
Sadness.
Sigh.

Okay, let’s all just stop fooling ourselves with this one: this is decent fast-​food mediterranean. Nothing special. I mean, the food is served in plastic to-​go containers (even if it’s to be eaten in the restaurant), so on that basis alone how in the world could it merit more than 3 stars?
On top of that, the food wasn’t even that great. The hummus was watery and lacked flavor, and the pita bread was thin and dry, although they tried to make up for that by giving you a lot of it (quality, not quantity guys). The lamb and chicken were decent, definitely moist and had good flavor, and the small portion of sun-​dried tomato sauce made it extra tasty. But there was so little of it that you are basically paying for a bunch of bad food and 4 bites of something you actually want to eat.
This place is fast and easy. But lets be honest with ourselves, it’s a dingy, small, quick mediterranean place that isn’t serving top-​of-​the-​line food. The next time you’re in that area, skip over this place and go for the sushi at Sushi House just across from it, where you can (surprisingly enough) find good food in the Asian ghetto.

I would give it 5 stars, but because it’s located in the asian ghetto, and thus likely not up to my standards of cleanliness, it gets 4 stars. The food gets 5 stars though!
This is basically the only place I will eat at in the asian ghetto (aka the «durant food court»).
I’ve had the lamb plate here before, and it was pretty good. The gyros (I’ve had the chicken and the lamb ones) are great as well. However, my favorite thing here, and the only thing I ever order anymore, is the chicken plate with rice, spicy, with potato salad. The green salad they give you is okay, but I normally eat only a couple of bites of that and the potato salad because I want to save room for the chicken and rice.
Get the chicken plate!!! It’s seriously the best thing ever. It’s topped with some spicy sauce and some yogurt sauce, and there’s some yummy garlic spread on the side. Forget all the other places in the asian ghetto. I don’t know why more people do not know about this place. I love it.
The people who work here are really cool too. I don’t know their names, but I come in like once a week, so the one guy who works there all the time normally asks me if I want the regular. That’s so cool! At most places you have to come in like every day to actually have a regular order. Okay, so whatever I get is pretty boring and easy to remember, but whatever. They are really nice and chatty here.
I normally order take-​out and enjoy the food in the privacy of my own apartment. There’s a $ 5 minimum for credit cards.

Great food. The spicy sauce they have has a good kick and is quite tasty.
The guys here are usually friendly, but can turn crazy if they think you have food from another place inside, beware the wrath.

I used to go to this place when I went to school from 99 to 2003. The beef plate with rice, hummus, and salad, spicy, is the way to go. The sauce that they put on there is amazing. I tried the chicken once and it was also good but I was addicted to the beef. I used to go there at least once a week. Definetely my favorite place to eat near campus, along with Gomnaru Korean BBQ on Northside.
I was in the Bay Area for Thanksgiving break and they were closed the Friday after Thanksgiving! That almost ruined my trip, but someday I will have Meesha’s again. I am very happy that students have kept this place open after the owner retired.
Speaking of the owner, he was a very interesting character, every time I came in he would greet me as «my friend». One time I returned after not coming in for like a year, and he still remembered me!

Chicken/​falafel rice plate spicy with potato salad = heaven
No joke… this place is ridiculously good. I used to eat here regularly back in college… over ten years ago… man I’m old. hahah
~tender/​juicy chicken
~delicious yogurt sauce
~spicy sauce is soooo yummy
~falafels are the best I’ve ever had… good flavoring/​spices
~tasty potato salad
Portions are huge and prices are cheap.
Durant Square has a bunch of great places to eat (Steve’s Korean BBQ used to be up there in my favorites but went back a few years ago and it wasn’t as good). The little square is totally dumpy and bums often walk around the square and sift through the garbage while you are eating outside. Trust me, it won’t bother you because the food will make you so happy, you won’t even care ;)

Ate here a couple times a week when I went to school here in the mid-90’s. I still try to get up there whenever I can even though I live in the south bay now. The place has since changed ownership and it’s even better now. The folks that run this place are friendly and have maintained the fantastic food that I remember.
Let’s put it this way — if I needed to name a last meal, this would be it. If I could only have one meal for the rest of my life, it would be from here. Chicken Meesha plate — spicy. Damn right.
We like this place so much we hired them to cater an event at our wedding (indian wedding, so we had more than one catered event) and they even did a fantastic job on that. I can’t count the amount of compliments we received from guests. And you’ll probably pay less than $ 8 a person. You just can’t go wrong here…

I pretty much survived on cheap eats while attending Cal. Meesha’s has a Cal student special that was really good, really satisfying, and pretty cheap. Their plates are so so good and so are their wraps. Just thinking about it makes me hungry: P
Owner is pretty friendly, at least from what I’ve seen. It’s a good alternative to the Asian dominated restaurants around Berkeley.

I was in Berkeley today and thought I’d try this place out. I wanted a snack but ended up ordering the chicken pita wrap, some falafels and a side of hummus. Everything was really good!
There was an older man (who I suspect is the owner) in the back busy making the food. He may seem Nazi-​ish towards Asians with Indian friends as Scott Y. mentions but he sure was nice to Chinese girls! He waved and even smiled at me while I was devouring my food.