shawarma – Around the World in 196 Plates

Country 095 – Oman (Jordan’s Shawarma)

Published on November 3, 2019December 7, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2300 John Street, Thornhill
Website: https://www.facebook.com/JorShawarma/

Standard disclaimer: no, Jordan’s Shawarma is not an Omani restaurant. Oman isn’t the tiniest country ever (with a population of just over four million, it’s the 125th most populous country in the world), but Omani restaurants in the GTA don’t exist. A Google search for Omani cuisine in Toronto comes up with several results about Tim Hortons opening in that country, but zero restaurants in the city.

Jordan’s Shawarma does, however, have lamb kebabs on their menu (which you can get in a rice bowl, a salad, or on fries). According to my old friend Wikipedia, the kebab is a staple in Oman, so close enough.

I got it in a rice bowl, and it was surprisingly good. It was actually extremely similar to the last thing I tried for this blog, another kebab rice plate from Royal Mezgouf. I quite enjoyed that one, but this was tastier in every regard.

The kebab itself was absolutely fantastic, with a nice lamby flavour, delicious spicing, and a good amount of exterior texture from the grill. It’s topped with the usual assortment of sauces — garlic, tahini, and hot sauce — and all three are on point. It also has a healthy dollop of some kind of tzatziki-esque yogurt sauce, which was seriously delicious.

The rice is top notch as well, as is the zesty salad.

I also tried the chicken shawarma; it wasn’t quite on the level of the kebab, but it was definitely above average, with tender, tasty meat and a decent amount of crispy bits.

Country 092 – Dominica (Chris Jerk)

Published on September 22, 2019September 22, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2570 Birchmount Road, Scarborough
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ChrisJerkCB/

I just talked about Brunei, a tiny country with a population of 400,000 that looks positively huge compared to Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic), an island nation in the Caribbean with a population of 71,000. It measures at 750 km², which is about a tenth of the size of the GTA.

As for Chris Jerk as a representative of Dominica, I’m cheating on several levels. It obviously doesn’t serve Dominican food, because how could it? The country is way too small to inspire restaurants outside of its borders.

Chris Jerk serves Caribbean/Jamaican food… kinda. Their claim to fame is jerk chicken shawarma, which you can order in a wrap, on a plate, or in a poutine. No, it’s not particularly authentic.

I tried the wrap, which is served in a tortilla. So it’s part Jamaican, part Middle Eastern, part Mexican, and all delicious.

Seriously: it’s so damn good. The restaurant was absolutely packed when I visited close to noon on a weekday, and it’s very, very easy to see why.

The wrap comes stuffed with the usual assortment of veggies, along with BBQ mayo, garlic mayo, and hot sauce. Fried plantain is an optional upgrade for an additional fifty cents.

The shawarma itself is absolutely outstanding. The chicken is perfectly cooked and tender, and the crispy bits? Out of control. The amount of texture and flavour you get from the dark brown bits is ridiculous.

It’s basically just really great shawarma — but then it’s got those jerk spices, which makes it delightfully unique.

The sauces and the veggies compliment it perfectly, and the ratio of meat to other stuff is perfect. It’s a seriously meaty wrap, but with enough toppings to balance it out. Plus, the plaintain adds a nice creamy sweetness that contrasts nicely with the crispy, savoury meat.

I know a lot of people are sticklers for authenticity; Chris Jerk is Exhibit A on why they’re wrong. Deliciousness is all that matters, and the jerk chicken shawarma has that in spades.

Country 044 – Lebanon (Acacia Fine Foods)

Published on October 30, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1170 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Mississauga
Website: http://www.acaciafinefoodsmississauga.com/

Thanks, Twitter — or more specifically, thanks, Suresh Doss (for the unaware, Doss has become the GTA’s go-to guy for recommendations on ethnic joints like this one). I visited this place entirely thanks to this tweet, and I’m really glad that I did.

It’s a big place, and was almost completely empty when I showed up at around 12:30 on a Sunday (which, as will soon become clear, I think is a travesty). I ordered the arayess, which I had never even heard of before, let alone tried.

It was amazing. It’s ridiculously simple — it’s essentially just a fairly thin layer of spiced ground beef sandwiched inside a piece of pita bread. It’s grilled over charcoal, which gives it a nice exterior char without making the bread overly crispy or crackly.

Whatever they’ve spiced the beef with tastes so good, and the juices soak into the bread so that the whole thing becomes an irresistible medley of beefy, perfectly spiced flavour. It comes with two sauces for dipping — tahini and garlic — and while they’re both quite tasty, it was the garlic sauce that really got me all hot and bothered. It was pretty much the standard thick white sauce that you get at most shawarma joints, but something about it made me want to grab a spoon and eat it straight-up from the container like pudding.

They gave us a couple of pieces of puffy, fresh-from-the-oven pita bread, and by the end of the meal I was tearing pieces off and dipping them straight into that amazing garlic sauce.

You can choose between fries, rice, or salad — since the tweet that brought me here specifically mentioned the rice, that’s what I got.

The rice, like everything else, was not kidding around. Great flavour, and it complimented everything else perfectly.

I should also mention that my dining companion got the chicken and beef shawarma plate, and based only on the couple of mouthfuls I had, it seemed like some seriously top-shelf shawarma (I actually enjoyed it so much that I returned a few days later to try a chicken shawarma sandwich — it was quite good, though it was missing the crispy bits that made the shawarma on the first day so amazing).

I’m really not sure why the place was so empty — I’ve been doing this blog for almost a couple of years now, and this was easily one of the best meals I’ve had so far. It was so good.