Time for another round of, Let’s Eat Meat Carved Off a Spit! These were spread out over the last couple of months….

 

Carthage, Av. Medrano 396, Almagro – Nicely spiced meat, but not a lot else to it – a few shreds of lettuce, maybe one half slice of tomato and a ribbon of onion. Kind of thin yogurt sauce, no hot sauce available – surprising given that they have other spicy things available, like the quite good and spicy meat fatay, essentially an empanada that I also tried. The bread was thick and chewy, and room temp cold, they didn’t even bother to warm it. Overall, the shawarma was okay, but no more than that.

 

Amed Estambul, Carlos Pellegrini 199, San Nicolas – Excellent. Really excellent. Beautifully spiced meat, and a generous amount, with lovely charred edges from the rotisserie. Plenty of balance with lettuce, onion, and tomato. A very good yogurt sauce, and more of it served on the side, along with an odd, but strangely it works, hot sauce that appears to be chili-spiked ketchup, or at the least, a sweet-spicy tomato and chili sauce of some sort. The bread, thin, and they take the time to char it lightly on the griddle. All in all, one of the best shawarmas around. 160 pesos. [Closed permanently during the pandemic]

 

Samer, Montevideo 680, San Nicolas – Flavorwise, this is a great shawarma – the meat has a nice char, and a real citric edge – I’m guessing they dust it well with sumac, one of my favorites for shawarma meat. Size, not so sure – for a regular shawarma, decent. But, this is the “Shawarma Extra”, which is supposed to be “with extra meat” and also slathered with hummus (195 pesos) in addition to the yogurt sauce on the regular size (180 pesos). If this is extra meat, I’d hate to see how little is in the regular, unless there’s minimal difference – which may well be the case given the mere 15 peso, or about 25 US cents, difference, that also includes the hummus! Everything very fresh. Service friendly. Definitely recommended.

 

Petra, Agüero 2272, Recoleta – Pass. Just pass. They have two lovely rotisserie spits set up, one for beef, one for chicken. But they’re turned on low, so all they appear to do is sort of warm and turn the meat a vague greyish color. They carve it off and cook it on a griddle instead. No seasoning that I could discern. a few scraps of tomato, lettuce, and onion. They not only soak the pita bread in the grease left behind on the griddle from cooking the meat, but then literally scrape the remaining grease off the griddle and onto the sandwich in its wrapper. No hot sauce (some dried chili flakes available, no more than a pinch allowed), because “chilies cost thousands of pesos a kilo” and “there are no fresh chilies available in Buenos Aires”- no they don’t and yes there are. 150 pesos. [Closed permanently during the pandemic]

 

And just for fun, Petra’s window logo. When you know that you’re supposed to use a possessive apostrophe, but have no idea how they work. I’m not even sure about their name – it doesn’t appear anywhere on the outside that I saw, I got that from Google Maps, perhaps it’s just called Worl’d Best.

 

Babilonia, Talcahuano 861, Retiro – This might be the first time I’ve ever knowingly had Kurdistani cuisine, or at least eaten in a place where the flag of Kurdistan was the most prominent decor. And, there’s some interesting differences in this shawarma to others I’ve eaten. The spicing of the meat was definitely different, and I’m not sure what it was – the only answer I got was “our own blend”. It was subtle, but good. The additions were onions that were grilled first, rather than raw, which is the way I’ve always had them, a nice touch, and I really liked that. Also lettuce, but not tomato. However, filling in for the tangy flavor of the tomato, they have a yogurt cheese (with more available on the counters to add to your own tastes), which was really interesting, along with the more usual yogurt sauce. And, the hot sauce, while fairly mild, was a chili oil, rather than a sauce – made things a little messy – you can see the oil seeping out all over the plate and counter – they put a lot on! Quite good shawarma, and definitely interesting for a different take. 160 pesos. [Closed during the pandemic. Maybe, perhaps, re-opened in a different spot?]

 

Las Mil y Una Noches, Talcahuano 383, San Nícolas – Yet another spot using the famous story for their name, and each with a different approach to how to say it in Spanish: La Mil y Un Noche, which has closed up long ago, always felt like a weird mix of gender and number, and Baghdad: Las Mil y una Noche, which now goes by just Baghdad, seemed more or less right, but felt like “night” should be plural, as it is here. All that aside, this spot was brought to my attention by one of our Horde folk, being right near his house. If I recall, he said they were Yemeni, though to me, the decor of the place looks very Egyptian. But I’m not expert on Middle Eastern decor, and I didn’t ask – the counterman never got off his cellphone into which he was having some sort of major argument throughout the time I was there, only pausing to take my order and ask for money. It’s also, I think, the first place I’ve been for shawarma where there’s no rotisserie to see – all the cooking is done in a kitchen in the back, and communication was through a pass window. The bread is a fairly thick pita bread, and was a touch soggy – interesting, they put a plastic bag over the shawarma and then wrap it in sandwich paper – most places do it in the opposite order, which allows the sandwich paper to absorb the moisture rather than trap it inside. The filling – nicely spiced meat, a decent amount, and generous tomato and lettuce, but no onion that I saw. The hot sauce was a fiery, vinegar based chili sauce that while delicious, kind of overwhelmed the rest of it. I did happily eat it all, but mostly what I tasted was chili, not the rest of it. I’d give it a good to quite good. 150 pesos. [Closed in 2020]

 

Baghdad, Av. Corrientes 883, San Nícolas – And, rounding us up, the aforementioned spot that has dropped its 1001 Nights reference. Much like the falafel sandwich that I’d reviewed before, this is a very generous, actually verging on huge shawarma – really packed with meat, lettuce, tomato, and onion. It’s a bit bland, very mild on the spice, and the hot sauce, while notable, isn’t very spicy. But it’s a good one, though their prices have definitely gone up – it’s no longer the cheap option (I mean it is cheap, but at 180 pesos, it’s now one of the more expensive shawarma around now – still, we’re talking about a range that only goes from us$2.50-$3.)