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.

Falafel Doron and the Marvelous Origami That Is the Lafa

Note: The first few shawarmas aren't posted in the order in which they were eaten, for anyone keeping score at home.

Falafel Doron
2 Rachel Imenu
Emek Rephaim, Jerusalem 
Shawarma lafa
35 shekel



I'm familiar with Falafel Doron from when I lived in the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem and would walk in daily to Emek Rephaim street for the free internet at Cafe Aroma. On the trendy, restaurant-laden street, It's one of the few true holes-in-the-wall, which is to Shawarma as the concert hall is to classical music. It's where shawarma was meant to be experienced (I guess it has to do with the acoustics or something).

I got my shawarma in a lafa, which I had yet to have since I got here. I was pretty excited as lafa is my favorite vehicle for shawarma, falafel, and just about every other edible thing. If you haven't had a lafa before, imagine a burrito, but thicker, and fluffier. Like an edible down blanket. Now imagine it fresh from the oven. Now imagine further that it's folded just like a burrito except with the top left open so it holds about a ton and a half of food. And if you turn your attention to the bottom of your hypothetical fluffy burrito, you'll note that all the folding going on down there has created a bready wad at the bottom inch or two, which acts as a grease trap that catches all the juice, oil, fat, and hummus that escaped capture initially. Like a delicious, drenched, pillowy POW camp. See fig. 1.

The final advantage of lafa over other breads is that because the lafa is packed while its open and then wrapped up, it takes less skill to execute properly. All sauces, salads, and meats can be easily distributed evenly throughout the lafa from top to bottom. A feat that is more difficult to master in a pita (although pita, when done right, has its own advantages, as we shall see later on).

Back at Falafel Doron, I had ordered my shawarma lafa, and was deciding on the salads to go in it. There wasn't too much deciding to do since there were so few choices. Just israeli salad, pickles, fries, a few cabbage things and maybe one or two other salads. For sauces just hummus, turkish salad, green skhug and amba (which I'm not ready to try just yet). There were a few other things in a separate self serve salad bar, but once the lafa is put together it's not worth trying to stuff more salads into it.

The meat was turkey. I got mine with hummus, israeli salad (it was an odd one. The tomato was cut small and the cucumber shredded in to half inch long bits), skhug, and fries. Unfortunately, my son was due for a nap, so I had to take the shawarma home and eat it in the less then ideal surroundings of my non-hole-in-the-wall apartment.

I know it's in here somewhere.

On opening the wrapping, the presentation was a little disappointing. The lafa was maybe two thirds full. For 35 shekel  I expect my shawarma to be packed to the brim. It took a bit to work my way down to the actual shawarma. That was a disappointment too. I'm not usually one to complain about having too much meat, since I love it so much. But I'll be damned if there wasn't just too much meat. Every shawarma needs to have a balance between meat and salad. Too much meat and you just have a turkey sandwich. Not enough meat and you just shelled out $9.50 for a veggie wrap. As you can see from the picture, my shawarma erred on the turkey sandwich side. Now, as a God-fearing Jew, I don't mind a nice turkey sandwich every once in a while. But this was not a nice turkey sandwich. I couldn't get three bites into it before I needed a glass of water to wash down the first two. It was just so dry. Between all the ingredients, the only thing adding any moisture to the party was the salad. And as noted earlier, There was not nearly enough of it; which is baffling since there was so much room for more. Also, I suspect that the small size of the pieces salad contributed to the dryness, since it seems like it wouldn't hold as much moisture.


The turkey itself was passable, well spiced (although the spice somehow made it seem less shawarma-ish and more turkey-sandwich-ish), and not too dry, but when turkey is the appetizer, main course, and dessert it damn well better be more than passable.

Either way, I just couldn't get past how dry the thing was. I guess it's better for the Kinneret, wasting less water on sandwiches and everything. But goddammit, I want my shawarmas soaked head to toe. Isn't that why they built all those desalination plants?