The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill marks its vegetarian dishes with a “VG” tag right on the menu, and that makes ordering easy at a place built around gyros and grilled skewers. Dips, pastries, salads, falafel, and a grilled cheese pita all carry the tag. You can fill a table without asking the staff a single question.

The Chisholm Trail restaurant at 9654 Red Dirt Road in Fort Worth is the example here, and the details below apply to the brand’s menu. The company began when two Las Vegas neighbors, Nick Della Penna and Trent Jones, talked about opening a restaurant together in early 2015, and today you find its restaurants across the country as a franchise. Menus and hours can vary, so check your own location before you go.

Start with the dips. Every one carries the vegetarian tag. Tzatziki blends Greek yogurt, labne, cucumber, garlic, and dill. Hummus is the dairy-free pick, with garbanzo beans, garlic, tahini, and lemon. Tirokafteri blends cream cheese and feta with roasted peppers, and Melitzanosalata is roasted eggplant with olive oil, lemon, and garlic. Pita comes with every dip. Can’t decide? The Four Dip Combo puts all four on one plate. The menu doesn’t tag the combo, but it contains only the four dips.

The rest of the appetizers add Dolmades, which are grape leaves stuffed with rice, lemon juice, and herbs, and tagged both dairy-free and gluten-free. Spanakopita wraps spinach and feta in puff pastry.

For a meal, you have three good options. The Falafel Pita packs housemade chickpea fritters into pita with romaine, tomatoes, red onions, tzatziki, and hummus, and it carries the vegetarian tag. The Classic Greek Salad, tagged vegetarian, comes with romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, feta, kalamata olives, pita, and the house vinaigrette. The Greek Salad Wrap rolls similar ingredients with garbanzo beans, hummus, and tzatziki in a flour tortilla. Add falafel to either one, or dolmades to the salad, and you have a bigger meal.

The Mezze Plate gathers dolmades, falafel, spanakopita, hummus, and tzatziki, so it works as a vegetarian sampler even though the menu doesn’t tag the plate. The Great Greek Rice Bowl, built from rice pilaf, romaine, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, garbanzo beans, olives, feta, and tzatziki, also lists no meat. Sides run to Feta Fries, French Fries, Lemon Potatoes, and Rice Pilaf, and you can make any entree a combo with a drink.

Skip the soup, since the Avgolemono starts with chicken. The Great Greek Gyro, the souvlaki plates, and the Athenian Burger all use meat too.

Dessert is easy. Baklava layers fillo dough, walnuts, and honey syrup. Mom’s Rice Pudding carries vanilla and cinnamon, plus a gluten-free tag. Baklava Ice Cream adds crumbled baklava to vanilla bean ice cream, with honey on top. Kids can get a cheese pizza or a grilled cheese pita, and both carry the VG tag.

The kitchen also grills chicken, steak, lamb, and shrimp. Nothing posted says whether the falafel and fries share a fryer with other foods, and no one describes separate grill surfaces. If cross-contact matters to you, ask the restaurant before you order.

You can order pickup or delivery online, and the restaurant takes catering orders. The Chisholm Trail location opens at 11am daily and closes at 8:30pm Monday through Thursday and Sunday, and at 9pm Friday and Saturday. Call (817) 862-7055 with questions.

Order the Four Dip Combo for the table, then a Falafel Pita and a Classic Greek Salad to share. Finish with baklava.