Arkadash

Arkadash
6 Shamai St.
City Center, Jerusalem 
Shawarma Baguette
30 shekel

I've already mentioned the two vehicles for shawarma; the lafa and the pita. Well, it seems there's a third one: the baguette. I've probably seen it on tons of felafel shop menus, but have always overlooked it due to my poor Hebrew reading skills. As you can tell from all the perfectly good letters going to waste, 'baguette' is a French word (How many T's do they really need? Don't they know there are poor Hawaiians who've never even seen a 'T' in their lives?). Purists feel that shawarma should only be eaten out of a lafa, or, in case of emergency, a pita; but never a baguette. They'll tell you that the baguette is foreign to Israeli cuisine, and therefore has no place in shawarmadom. But to them I say, "bring me your baguettes, and your malawachs, and your whatnots. After all, isn't Israel itself just a melting pot. An assortment of contrasting salad-cultures, meat-cieties, and sauce-nicities, all mingling together. And wrapped in a delicious bready shell. Like a burrito." And then I say "dammit, I mean shawarma," and be all annoyed that I'm no good at giving speeches off the cuff.

Anyway, I got the opportunity to demonstrate my open-mindedness at Arkadash (motto: "we bring honor to shawarma") at the behest of Dan, the fellow who sold me my cellphone plan. Dan also demanded that I get my shawarma in a baguette, which is the only reason I even noticed their existence in the first place. On entering the place, the decor is very thought out for a shawarma place, in that there is a decor of some sort. An orange and black type that I can't bring myself to care enough about to note more than two adjectives. It doesn't matter though, because the second you enter, your eyes are immediately drawn to the back of the restaurant, where three skewers of shawarma are twirling in unison in front of their fires. Like ballerinas; if balerinas could sweat liquified fat and were made out of beef, turkey, and dark meat chicken, respectively, as these ones were.

I can't tell if this looks delicious or gross.

They all look marvelous, and I can't choose, so the fellow at the counter recommends I try all three, and who am I to argue. The shawarma man pulls a baguette out of what I thought was a garbage can. I order coarsely chopped Israeli salad (there are two sizes, what luxury!), fried onion, skhug, and hummus (I'm intrigued by the guacamole, open-mined as I am, but not today). Next the fellow pulls out the pan of the mixed shawarma meats, adds parsley, or cilantro, or some similar worthless herb, and deftly spreads an even layer over my salads. Then he finishes it off with a good shot of techina.

I wish I could say that all the meats perfectly complement each other, that the flavors and textures of each one bring out those of the others. However, the meats just taste like a pile of meat. A crispy, meaty, delightfully spiced pile of meat. But you don't care about the meat; you want to know about the baguette. Well let me tell you: it holds up beautifully. The oils, techina, and meat juices all make their way down into the bready interior, mingling and mixing, until they combine into a creamy goodness that rolls down your chin like a red carpet for for the meat and salads it accompanies. And it's all held together by that thin, toasty, baguetty crust that greets you enthusiastically with every bite.


 In conclusion, shawarma on baguette is wonderful. I'm going to eat more. So should you.