Moshiko

Moshiko
5 Ben Yehuda
City Center, Jerusalem
Shawarma pita
25 Shekel

 

There's more to the left. You'll have to trust me I guess.

Moshiko was the first shawarma place I ate at when I got here. I had been in Israel a day, and I was dying for some shawarma already. Moshiko is one of the more well known falafel places among Americans weary from loading up on knock-off tee shirts and overpriced Judaica on Ben Yehuda street. It's a clean looking place. I wasn't too hungry, so I got a pita. Though they had a great selection of salads to choose from, I figured I'd stay conservative with my first shawarma, so I just got Israeli salad, pickles, and fries with chummus and skhug. The meat itself was lamb, I think (I wasn't really sure. I called later to ask, but the phone number I found online belonged to a nice fellow who used to, but no longer, works there. Although, I guess I could have just asked him if the shawarma there is lamb, but it's too late now.).


The meat was unlike most shawarma I'm used to, in that it was soft and juicy and not crispy. Meat generally is cooked so that it's crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. With shawarma the pieces are are too small to have both. So you have to choose one. I choose crispy, since the rest of the sandwich is juicy enough on its own between the salads and sauces. If you don't have the crispy meat, it sometimes gets lost among the other stuff. And if you can't taste the meat, then what's the point?

Even though the meat wasn't crispy, I can't really complain though since it was still delicious, and it held its own just fine. Maybe because I went light on the sauces. Maybe because it was lamb. I don't know. Either way it was good. I did have a bit of an issue though with the pita. As I've already brought up, pitas are tricky. If you don't pack them properly you end up with a trifle instead of a shawarma, with each salad and sauce in its own layer. Shawarma's like a high school prom; if everyone's not mixing its a failure. I wouldn't exactly say this shawarma was a failure, but, Moshiko, if you're there, maybe work on that.