Shwarma conclusion
Sorry for the delay, I have been on the move these last few weeks.
I went to Maoz shwarma for the final leg of my great shwarma challenge and I ordered the standard lafa (is there really anything else?). I had it prepared the way I like it, with hummus, fries, pickles, tichina and a touch of charif. The meat is flavored in a special way – not spicy, but in no way bland – and it is cooked to perfection (and as all good shwarma lovers know, it is best to get at the end of the day, when the meat is blackened from cooking for hours). The chips (fries) are not greasy at all. I ate the shwarma slow and did my best to savor every bite, it was delicious.
I have tried them all and Maoz is king. While in Israel I asked around – cabbies, bus drivers, locals (only native Hebrew speakers obviously) and I was surprised to find that they all know about Maoz and they all love it. There are no gimmicks at Maoz (and also very few Americans). Maoz is a serious place for people who love shwarma and expect the best – no games, no fried onions, no ketchup, no napkins – just real shwarma (a little slice of heaven if you ask me).
Maoz is on King George Street in Jerusalem, easy to find and you can talk most bus drivers into dropping you off right in front. If you want my expert opinion, Moaz is the perfect shwarma – I have not found better.
Unfortunately, I overdid it and OSed (over shwarma-ed). All good shwarmas stay with you for a day or too (no, there is no such thing as a “health” shwarma – the concept is oxymoronic) and after one shwarma too many I nearly did myself in. Friday night, the day after my Maoz shwarma, I found myself in incredible pain and running franticly through the streets of the Old City. I spent most of the night with chills and a fever and my eyes watered, but I survived.
I would have taken a break from shwarma, but I have a big mouth and there too many people who want to eat shwarma with me. Two nights after my OS near death experience I was talked into going back for another shwarma. Two of my students actually fought for the right to pay for me (Julia asked first, so I gave her the honors). I went with a group of about 15 to Maoz and we all ordered shwarmas (one person ordered a falafel – I was embarrassed for her and told her so). I was afraid to order a full shwarma (because of the Friday night OS fiasco) so I did the unthinkable and got a half lafa. I was pleasantly surprised – it was all the joys of a full shwarma without the pain.
I am back in Boston and now that I have silenced the beginner-shwarma-upstarts, I can finally take a much needed break and let my body recover.
Special thanks goes again to Julia for paying for my second Maoz shwarma. Also thanks to Julie – although she didn’t get to buy my shwarma, her heart was in the right place.
6 Comments Add your own
1. John A. Grasso | June 27th, 2006 at 4:32 am
W-O-W ! A near mystical experience…
I had just gone to the Westeern Wall Camera to daven Arvit (and to include in my prayers that in the two week absence of your report on Maoz to complete the Book Of Shwarma, that you had not succumbed to an overdose of shwarma in a nefarious addiction at the expense of heavenly vegetarian falafel). I feared that in Isreal that you might have soliliquized as Falstaff to addict our sons to shwarma.
A chill ran up my spine when the Wall Cam was blank; black. Nothing. Was this an omen?
I bolted to More shwarma.com (OOPS! More Torah.com, that is) detouring only for a glass of sack (actually Manischewitz Blackberry) and found no new shwarma entry.
I reconsulted Rabbi Noah Weinberg’s “How To Get Your
Prayers Answered” and went to the Window On The Wall to say a few more–the Wall was back and so were the prayerful. This was a good sign.
I wondered if Rabbi Tzvi honored “Gluckin Wife” last entry to take her to Maoz in Isreal next time he goes. And her penultimate entry, to dine at the Garden Of Eatin’. I thoght I heard thunder. I comforted myself, certain that no rabbi ordained by Rabbi Noah Weinberg could have failed to memorize Prover 31, Eshet Hayil.
I went back to More Torah.com and found more evidence of Tikkun Olam: the concluding chapter of The Great Shwarma Challenge is here, and you have survvived a closer call than the encounterwith New York’s Finest, the police. More evidence of Divine Providence.
Though I noticed, Rabbi Tzvi after your blessing Friday night, Shlomo forgot to remind you from heaven Saturday night to split the sponsored shwarma, so both Julia and Julie are blessed and partake together in the Big Mitvah. I can hardly wait to see how Heaven responds.
And so, may I be blessed to enter the line to sponsor a shwarma for you. Or a falafel, or a kashruth plate of pasta. (Is there such a thing in the north end of Boston?) And Julie, you can sponsor a falafel, aplate of pasta or a shwarma for me anytime. Just as long as its vegetarian.
2. Gluckin wife | June 27th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I liked what you wrote it made me laugh as usual…..I think your eyes are bigger than your belly ( whose aren’t?) but to do half a schwarma? Maybe some is better than none. Very interesting comment by Mr Grasso…… yes Rabbi Tzvi does know aishes Chayil…..and as far as honoring my request to go to Maoz….I think maybe that is in the affirmative…time will tell. But Rabbi Tzvi did take me to Flatbush and we did go to the garden of eatin’ and I LOVED it. It was good and the waitress was really nice…highly recommend it. Tzvi…..what will you eat in Poland? That will have an entry of it’s own I am sure…!
3. erica sanieoff | June 30th, 2006 at 9:08 am
is maoz shwarma the place you took our group when you said you took us to “the best shwarma place ever”? because that shwarma place was amazing and i can’t imagine a better shwarma. also, since i am back in boston and can no longer get amazing israeli shwarma i went to ramis the other day and although the shwarama was amazing….it just wasn’t the same
i want to go back to israel as soon as possible, not only because i miss the land….but also because i miss the shwarma
4. Gary Rubin | July 7th, 2006 at 6:22 am
All I have to say is, “Shwarma the hard way.”
5. Dan Lozovatsky | August 2nd, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Tzvi, come out to Seattle and start a Shwarma place. We desperately need one out here. It can be the next big Seattle franchise!!
6. Nils | July 20th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I always feel so sorry for the Jews who lost so much of their own culture and culinary traditions throughout their 2000 year exile that in modern times they had to resort to copying arabs and other middle eastern cultures in order to even begin to have anything like native cuisine in Israel. Hummus is THE dish of the Palestinians, tabbouleh is Lebanese without a doubt and shawarma originated with the turks and then was spread by them throughout the middle east (turkish-shvarmek-to rotate) Falafel is also clearly an arab dish of the eastern med, especially if made with garbanzo beans rather than fava, as in Egypt. It’s not even eaten in other parts of the mid east. I’ve eaten at the table of Jews in Tunisia, Turkey, and with Iranian and Iraqi jews and they basically adopted the local cuisine and what was truly Jewish and unique the other people in those countries did not normally make or eat, as in Matza for western jews or challah bread or certain types of couscous and fricasses from Djerba, Tunisia. Recently I heard of a Palestinian Debka group that through good will agreed to train and dance with an Israeli group in order to foster peace and understanding. Then how were they repaid? Years on that same group began to promote Debka as the National dance of Israel, even using the same name. Granted there is much in common among debka and the other step dances of turkey, kurdistan, greece and the balkans’ however, why did the jews have to stoop to such dissambling. they’ve got lots of smart folks in archeology and history and such. Couldn’t they have recollected some parts of their own dance style and revived it. Or better yet, if the Jews could just finally admit that the only other semites in the world are arabs and accept the fact that they are linguistic, cultural and genetic cousins and heal the rift they created in their victimized minds as an attempt to compensate for their murder at the hands of the European nazi’s russians and spanish, then maybe then, it wouldn’t be sooo bad that Israelis had to steal/adopt arab food and dance as their own. It’s pitiful really. if only they had learned the lesson they have failed to learn in all their persecutions!
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