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Raptor
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16 Aug 2014, 7:53 pm

Just about anything has to be a better alternative for tacos than Taco Bell (read that Taco Hell) and their dogfood tacos. :x


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Misslizard
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16 Aug 2014, 8:17 pm

The last time I ate at Taco Hell was a year ago and it was nasty.The lettuce was wilted and the food was bland,except for the ever present over salting.
I've got better burritos at the little gas stations that sell pizza and stuff like that.


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The_Face_of_Boo
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17 Aug 2014, 9:11 am

trollcatman wrote:
The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
I had no idea there are European dishes out there that include on shawarma; cheese with shawama sounds odd to me, and fries and garlic sauce are only used with the chicken shawarma.

They put tahini sauce with meat shawama sandwich over here (and vegetables).

http://www.sabmarket.com/DSCF2115.JPG
Left meat, right chicken.


Shoarma is quite popular here now. Often as a late night snack before or after a night of drinking beer, some of those shoarma joints have outrageous opening hours. Usually people eat shoarma with round pita bread and garlic sauce. Not sure what meat they use (in supermarkets pork shoarma is quite common because pork is cheap, probably not so much in the ME). It's often made by immigrants or their descendants. The largest immigrant groups from the Middle-east are Moroccans and Turks. Quite a few Christian Arabs too, I was surprised to hear of an Egyptian studying here called Yohannes (which is a pretty common name here too) because it rarely occurs to people that many Dutch names have a biblical origin.

The pictures you posted look somewhat similar to Turkish lamacun, which is sort of a pizza-like wrap filled with meat and vegetables.


Do you have of those? This is Syrian Shawarma.
[img][800:765]http://i.imgur.com/EVRASvf.jpg[/img]



Raptor
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17 Aug 2014, 9:21 am

Looks decent. I'm assuming that what appears to be some kind of sauce in the center compartment is for dipping the Shawarma in. What is that in the left compartment that looks like mashed potatoes?


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The_Face_of_Boo
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17 Aug 2014, 9:36 am

Raptor wrote:
Looks decent. I'm assuming that what appears to be some kind of sauce in the center compartment is for dipping the Shawarma in. What is that in the left compartment that looks like mashed potatoes?



Garlic paste; it's for the chicken shawarma (one of the rows is chicken); the middle is made of tahini and it's for meat.



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17 Aug 2014, 10:04 am

That does look good,and I LOVE garlic


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The_Face_of_Boo
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17 Aug 2014, 10:20 am

Misslizard wrote:
That does look good,and I LOVE garlic


Many of the rich/middleclass syrian refugees are opening chains of restaurants; so there are new entries of dishes.

It is worth noting that strictly speaking dishes in the Levantine region are associated with cities more than countries. So a dish might taste differently depending on whether you have it in Beirut, Sidon, Nablus, Homs or Aleppo....etc. Aleppo cuisine is the most esteemed among the Syrian cuisines.

This region was always a set of city-state cultures.



Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 17 Aug 2014, 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

trollcatman
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17 Aug 2014, 10:22 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
Do you have of those? This is Syrian Shawarma.
[img][800:765]http://i.imgur.com/EVRASvf.jpg[/img]


Is that a wrap/roll or some pastry thing with shoarma in it? I haven't seen it in that form here. Here shoarma usually comes in pita bread or in a wrap. It often looks like this:

Image


What is interesting that when you google images with "shoarma" (Dutch spelling) you get quite different results than when you google "shawarma". People usually eat it with garlic sauce, and sometimes cheese (you can usually get cheese with everything). For some reason the supermarket shoarma often has paprika slices in it too. Those pita bread/wrap shoarma are often on-the-go style too, without a plate. You can also get it without bread but with fries instead (since regardless of where you are somehow there are always fries available). I've also eaten couscous with shoarma in it.

I'm curious how much the meals you posted cost. Eating out is usually pretty expensive here. Fries are pretty affordable but anything fancier is somewhat expensive in my opinion. Eating in a restaurant as opposed to taking it home is often more expensive too. Anything with shoarma starts at 5-6 euros here. If you want a plate with shoarma and fries and salad that's usually 10 or more. For some reason kebab is cheaper than shoarma. Kebab usually (and shoarma sometimes) comes in what people here call Turkish bread.



trollcatman
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17 Aug 2014, 10:30 am

I've never seen tahini over here. People usually eat their shoarma with garlic sauce (based on yoghurt or mayonaise or something), regardless of whether it is chicken or meat.



The_Face_of_Boo
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17 Aug 2014, 10:31 am

The last one is $8 including a soft drink; the huge dish in the previous is about $15 if I recall right; the second pic is all homemade.



The_Face_of_Boo
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17 Aug 2014, 10:54 am

There's only one new restaurant in Beirut that makes real Turkish Kebab (with its Döner bread).

It's weird after centuries of Ottoman rule yet it's not quite popular in the levant, maybe Döner is a modern turkish thing?



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17 Aug 2014, 11:05 am

^^ Somehow I expected food to be a bit cheaper in Lebanon because of GDP differences. On the other hand, Beirut is a pretty big city and I live in Apeldoorn, a rustic watering hole. I found that in the larger cities around here food is more expensive. I rarely eat out myself. Cooking for myself is just so much cheaper, and I don't really like having to go out for food (laziness), and I don't like restaurants in general because they are filled with screaming kids and loud drunks. If I get something I prefer to take it home.



trollcatman
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17 Aug 2014, 11:20 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
There's only one new restaurant in Beirut that makes real Turkish Kebab (with its Döner bread).

It's weird after centuries of Ottoman rule yet it's not quite popular in the levant, maybe Döner is a modern turkish thing?


Maybe it requires actual settlement by Turkish people for the food to spread? I think almost all kebab shops are operated by ethnic Turks. I looked it up, 2.4% of Dutch people are ethnic Turks. I don't think there would be many doner shops otherwise. There are quite a few Turkish grocery stores and Turkish bakers and Turkish butchers here too.



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17 Aug 2014, 11:44 am

This is some positive news from this city for a change.This would really help inner city dwellers to have fresh food and exercise,plus gardens look nice and they lake people happy.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08 ... 16-bananas


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ruveyn
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17 Aug 2014, 4:06 pm

Bad eating habits and not enough exercise.



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17 Aug 2014, 8:23 pm

never heard of Shawarma, sounds kinda interesting. though I can't seem to find local place that has it on goolge.