For the last three and a half years, ever since my first visit to Jordan, I've been eating way too many meals at a little shwarma stand across the street from the University of Jordan. It's in the same row as McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeye's Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken and the local fast food champs, the Chili House and Lebani Snacks. Despite the competition it continues to flourish. It's still a hole in the wall, but it's a much nicer hole in the wall now. It's located right on a sidewalk and that's where its two tables reside, right next to the glass-front refrigerators where the canned drinks are stored. It's also much more regimented - as late as last year when Bob Mayer, Rob Williams and I went there the cost of a meal would seem to vary depending upon the owner's mood (he's the one in the center of the middle shot as he's walking out of the back) - now the cost remains the same all the day (which makes it easier to plan, but has taken a bit of the charm away). On that visit Rob and Bob and I decided to have a competition to see who could eat the most shwarma - I left them bruised and destroyed. The menu has also expanded. When I first started eating here your two choices were big shwarma or little shwarma. Now they have hamburgers and fries and all sorts of other western-influenced edibles. The centerpiece of the menu, however, remains the shwarma. I'm not certain what is in it, and I don't really think I want to know. There is spicey meat - I think it's chicken, although sometimes little bites taste like beef, but I suppose goat is a possibility although I doubt it - I know it's not pork, obviously - and a pickle in a wrap. Now that the menu has expanded I have #8, no fries, and a 7-Up. It only costs 1.2 JD (about $1.50) and is about a third of what it costs to eat at the more western style competitors.
On a sad note, the Grill House, where Bob and Rob and I had hamburgers and were comped with the worst onion rings I've ever had in my entire life, has gone out of business - another victim of the shwarma monopoly.
4 comments:
An excellent homage to one of the Middle East's finest culinary contributions, Gary!
I'd only correct one detail in your story - Bob Mayer, the SCHWARMA KING, ate us both under the table.
Let's be honest.
I leave you with this poem, one that blends both Buddhist and Hindu traditions with the Middle East's finest food experience:
Eat more schwarma
Do your dharma
Live your karma
Do less harm-a
Eat more schwarma
Rob the Deadline Poet
OK, OK, Bob ate us under the table, but I had to grade him on a curve - geez, he grew up in the South (he has a natural advantage).
Getting into an eating contest with Scudder is rather like launching a land war in Asia or taking on a Sicilian in a battle to the death. If you like lost causes, go for it, but expect to win....never. Locals still talk about his demolition of a shrimp volcano at a Cincinnati Chinese restaurant in terms usually reserved for Godzilla and Tokyo.
Yeeeessssssssssssss!
No comment - just drool.
Shukran!
J
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