Middle East eats are easier to find
It’s easier than ever to dig into shawarma sandwiches, falafel and other delights
You know a dish has gone mainstream when a chain restaurant starts selling it at the mall.
Naf Naf Grill, based in Naperville, Ill., started making its style of shawarma sandwiches at Brookfield Square in January: slices of chicken or beef in puffy pita bread (or laid in bowls over rice, salad or couscous), with the diner's choice of toppings and sauces. (At first, the restaurant used traditional vertical rotisseries, but has started cooking beef to order.)
Shawarma and other Middle Eastern dishes have been available for years at restaurants such as Casablanca on Brady St. and in markets, of course — mostly within the city of Milwaukee.
What's new is the wider availability, now reaching into the suburbs.
Casablanca is opening a second restaurant, in Brookfield. Shawarma House, which opened on N. Oakland Ave. in 2014, opened a second location in Brookfield in the fall. (Casablanca's full-service restaurant will be at 17800 W. Blue Mound Road; Shawarma House's Brookfield counter-service restaurant is at 17385 W. Blue Mound.)
Until recently, Greenfield had Jerusalem Pastries, which closed suddenly over the weekend. A counter-service restaurant with a large pastry selection, it opened in July at 4171 S. 76th St. Although the restaurant didn't hit its stride immediately, it had been serving very good dishes lately, especially its chicken shawarma sandwiches, drizzled with pomegranate molasses, and its plates of juicy lamb kebabs. (If it were to reopen elsewhere, I'd like to know about it.)
But plenty of places remain for shawarma sandwiches and grilled meats, along with falafel and other vegetarian and vegan bites.
Shawarma sandwiches — wraps, if you're going to be particular about it — are a special joy, with their browned bits of meat, the tang of pickles, the contrasting textures and temperatures.
These were my favorite casual spots for shawarma and other Middle Eastern dishes, visited in the past few months. Note that one is a food truck and a couple others are counters within grocery stores; none is fancy, but they serve very good (and very filling) fare. The sandwiches and plates are generous, high-quality food for not very much money.
The gluten-free should note that shawarma can be served as an entrée atop rice instead of rolled in bread; served with side dishes, it's usually around $4 more. Some spots offer a choice between two kinds of bread: The regular, thin pita wrapped around the meat and toppings, and shrak, which is similar but slightly thinner and much larger. For a few dollars more, it's an even more filling meal for the perpetually hungry.
Holyland Restaurant
Inside Holyland Grocery, a fixture for 15 years on the far south side, the large towers of meat will catch your eye as you head to the restaurant counter and its small dining room.
One rotisseries holds chicken; the other is a mix of beef and lamb, with slabs of fat at the top of the tower that melt and baste the meat as it cooks.
Order at the counter and
have a seat while you wait if you're getting something that takes a little longer to prepare, like the excellent kifta kebab ($5.99 sandwich, $8.99 plate). The plate is generous — rice catches juices from the groundbeef-and-lamb skewer as well as from grilled onion and tomato. It also holds hummus that's like silk, a folded flatbread and cucumber-tomato salad. Toasted slivered almonds sprinkled over the meat is a flavorful finishing touch.
For the so-very-good shawarma sandwiches ($4.99 chicken, $5.99 beef-lamb), pause at the counter to customize your toppings. Among the choices are brilliant pink pickled turnip; chopped cucumber and tomato are offered separately instead of combined, handy if you're averse to one or the other.
Holyland's falafel has the distinctive flavor of sesame seeds that turn nutty as they're fried in the large pot of oil; it's one element that makes the falafel ($3.99 for a sandwich, $1.99 for six pieces) here so good.
One of these weeks, my timing will be right to try the mansaf, lamb in yogurt sauce over rice; it's sold only on Friday afternoons and evenings.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily (the grocery store closes at 10 p.m.). 2755 W. Ramsey Ave. (414) 817-1959. facebook.com /holylandgrocery
Al-Yousef Market
Newer among the city's Middle Eastern markets, Al-Yousef opened in 2015 in Oak Creek with a large bulk-sweets section near the entry as one of its features. Bypass that — if you can — and turn right to reach the takeout restaurant counter.
That's where the two large rotisseries of chicken and beef stand, the meat shaved from them as customers order. Decide what you'd like on your sandwich; tahini sauce and raw onions with sumac on beef is a classic combination, as is garlic sauce and cucumber pickles on chicken. Shredded pickled red cabbage — good on everything, if you ask me. Al-Yousef also has thin slices of fresh chiles as an option.
The shawarma sandwiches ($5.99) are so good that it's hard to think of ordering anything else, but try the other skewered meats sometime, too, especially the chicken shish taouk ($5.99 as a sandwich, $9.99 as a plate). The plate is two skewers' worth of juicy chunks of grilled chicken, served with rice, hummus and salad.
Falafel ($1.99 for six pieces, $5.99 in a sandwich) have a particularly delicate crispy-crunch to them, delicious fresh from the fryer.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily; the market is open until 10 p.m. 6329 S. 20th St., Oak Creek. (414) 301-5233. facebook.com / AL Yousef Supermarket and Restaurant
Mendy
At Mendy, a three-year-old storefront diner on the near west side, dishes from Yemen are woven into the menu of burgers, sandwiches and American breakfasts meant to appeal to nearby Marquette University students.
Its shawarma sandwiches — lemony chicken ($5.50) and lamb ($5.99) — stuff cubes of meat into pocket pitas with lettuce, tomato and a sauce that's golden with turmeric.
Falafel at Mendy ($3 for a side, $5 a sandwich) are especially flavorful — green with herbs, spicy from red chile flakes and nutty from sesame seeds.
Mendy makes a must-have clay-oven bread, thin and crisp in spots, thick and tender in others, and sprinkled with little nigella seeds for a taste like concentrated-onion-meets-peppercorn.
Bigger than the plate it's served on, the bread comes alongside citrusy hummus ($3.50), garnished with sumac and olive oil. The bread also is served with entrées such as salteh ($8.99), a rich stew with lamb, carrots and other vegetables that bubbles like a volcano in its stone bowl, or seasoned, roasted lamb shanks ($12.99) over rice flavored with bay leaves, whole cardamom pods and other spices.
Before heading to the register to pay, try masoob ($4.99) for dessert, a bread-pudding-like dish with banana that's served warm and topped with cream and honey. (Mendy makes good fruit smoothies, too, for $4.75.)
Hours: 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily. 2040 W. Wisconsin Ave. (414) 935-1111. facebook.com/MendyMKE
Falafel Guys
At the Falafel Guys restaurant in Thiensville, shawarma can be ordered as an entrée, but at the roving food truck, it's fittingly served as a sandwich only.
The street sandwich is a handful: Chicken thigh meat browned on the rotisserie is stuffed into a soft, split pita with hummus, tahini sauce, pickles and lettuce.
The namesake falafel ($4 for four pieces, $7 for a sandwich) is flavorful — spicy, herbed and studded with sesame seeds.
Varying locations and times for the truck, with more frequent appearances as the weather warms; see twitter.com/falafelguysMKE. The restaurant, at 105 W. Freistadt Road, Thiensville, is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It also delivers. (262) 302-4122. falafelguysmke.com