Bandora Shawarma is Really onto Something!

Bandora Shwarma

Who would have thought that someone could reinvent the shwarma? Well the owners of Bandora shwarma did. Bandora (Badatz beit Yosef) is a new shwarma chain that has been around for less than a year and has really made an impact in the fast food world of Israel. The concept of theirs is to cook the shwarma open a horizontal fire pit. Just like in south american BBQ style. Over an open spit slowly rotating and letting the fat drip so the smoke really penetrates the meat and enhances the flavor of the meat. Unlike your standing shwarma joints who all do the same thing, they really have a winner here.

 

Every Bandora shwarma is franchised with guidance from the home office so wherever you go it will taste the same, and I can tell you, that is absolutely true. I have eaten their shwarma in Kiryat Gat in the south and in Jerusalem as well, Everything is the same. The layout, flavors, service all the same.  So far I have tried two of the ways they prepare the shwarma. One is right off the spit into a pita or laffa bread, the other is where they cut it off the spit and give it a real nice kick with some heat.

Let me explain a little more about the shwarma, the meat has a real nice smoke flavor to it, the laffa bread is very durable and is able to hold the generous portion that they give each customer. The condiments are made in-house, not the hummus though, but the schug, tehini and all the sides are prepared in-house. The pickles have a great crunch, the cabbage is sweet with a touch of vinegar and the fries are industrial, but no ones perfect right.

I have to declare that Bandora shwarma is definitely one of my top 5 shwarma joints in the city of Jerusalem. Every Bandora around Israel is Kosher! Everything is just great there from the way they present the food, to the take away even. It is a bit on the pricier side on the shwarma circuit, but it’s definitely worth the money. So if you find yourself in the area with a branch and are looking for a fast bite, I highly recommend it!

Sovah really is filling Shwarma in Bayit Ve’Gan

Sovah 

I went yesterday to visit a family relative of my wife’s in Bayit Ve’gan who is recovering from a light heart attack and thought, maybe I should take things down a notch with the food. So across the street from the apartment, there’s a bakery, a bank and a recently re-opened shwarmah joint called Sovah(kosher mehadrin, badatz, shmita lechumra). So obviously, heart attack=shwarmah so I went there to get a shwarmah for my wife and myself.

While ordering I saw them prepare their own shwarmah pit. I have to say, it was very impressive. Most shwarmah joints just order the meat ready to go on a spit and everything, so seeing them do this in-house was very impressive. Not only was it marinated in-house and stacked up nicely, they only use beef. almost everything there was prepared in-house, and for a greasy spoon in Bayit Ve’gan, that’s pretty impressive.

When I buy a shwarma, I judge it in a couple of ways: First off is flavor of the meat. Is it dry, flavorful, spiced well. Then by the laffa bread: How thick is it, is it fresh. Then I check out the condiments, are they fresh, prepared in-house. Then the fries; are they store-bought or made in-house. And finally the girth of the whole thing. I mean is how they pack it up, the meat to condiment ratio that the meat has to be even or more than the sides going into the laffa, And lastly, if I can hold it in one hand or in two. Not many places hold up to my standards, but if you do find a place  like that, go back for another because you won’t find many like that around.

So I ordered myself a classic shwarma; chummus, salad, pickles, coleslaw, tehini a hint of heat and hand cut fries from real potatoes and of course the meaty goodness, and boy did they stand up to my expectations. The meat was seasoned perfectly, it was moist and full of flavor. the salads and condiments were really good and fresh and the laffa was very light. The only downfall of this was like in most shwarmah joints that cut their own fries is that they only fry them once. It’s disappointing because then the fries are limp, soft and soggy. All they have to do is fry them again and it makes such a difference. Otherwise it is a great shwarma and one of Jerusalem’s best in my opinion, and there a are a lot so that’s saying something. The guy’s behind the counter were nice and it was a really great lunch experience.

 

Sovah, Hapisga 17 st. Bayit Ve’gan, Jerusalem

Max Shwarma at the Police station

It’s been almost a month since my last blog post, and the reason for that is, that my life has been pretty hectic lately. Sadly my uncle passed away, and after the shiva I went off for two weeks to miluim(army reserves). I’m not going to tell you how bad the food was on the base, but I will tell you about a great shwarma place and a great story that goes with it.

On the way to the base, we picked up a friend at the train station in Beer Sheva. It was about 12 pm so of course we were hungry. So we asked around, where is the best shwarma in the city. I asked a foodie friend in Beer Sheva for help, but in the meanwhile my Israeli friends were busy asking people off the street. Everyone gave us the same answer, next to the police station. In the meantime my friend told me about this place called Max Shwarma. So I told my friends the name but they insisted on going by the police station and trying out the Shwarma there. I guess everyone we asked has either been to the police station or just really like the food there.

 

We parked the car and started walking down what seemed a sort of street mall across the street from the station, and low and behold, the original location for Max Shwarma is located there! It has been located there for over 50 years and they are in the process of renovation to make the joint classier. I asked why would they do that, and the guy said it’s the times. People don’t want to eat in dirty run down places anymore, so they first renovated the kitchen, and now the back room for seating, as well as the bathrooms. Even the attitude of the guy behind the counter was great and polite to every customer, and that’s not something you find in every shwarma stand.

Everything served at Max Shwarma is fresh and clean. The salads, the laffas, even the tahini sauce felt fresh. They serve you a generous portion there and let you take as much salad as you want in bowls as well. The shwarma itself was seasoned very well and very moist too. A great meal for a soldier who wasn’t going to eat for at least another week.  There are multiple locations around the city but my friend told me that they are all just as good.

So, if you find yourself at the police station in Beer Sheva, or just in Beer Sheva, I recommend you guys to stop there and check it out!

 

A trip to Shipuday Chen in the heart of Ramat Gan

A while back, me and my business partner found ourselves hungry in the gush dan area. I asked him if he’s hungry, and he said yes, but we aren’t from the area so we had no clue where to eat, and if it was even good. So, I looked on line for a place people like to eat and this is what we found.  In the heart of Ramat Gan, not far off the Ayalon Highway, there is a local steak house called Shipuday Chen(http://on.fb.me/1uyUyTu).

This place is unreal. It’s been around since 1973 (30 Years!!) and go through over 450 kilos of meat per day! That’s over 1 ton of meat! Crazy, right?! It is also nice and clean.

What makes this place really great I feel is that it’s a real neighborhood joint. It’s not an easy place to find because it’s surrounded by buildings and not in an industrial area or mall. It’s a peoples place for locals to grab some great food. In my opinion they have one of the best shwarmas in the country. Now I’ve eaten a lot of shwarmas from eilat to metula, and honestly it was unreal. They also do shipudim, which are skewers of just meat and also unreal. Everything there is made fresh every day: the salads, hand cut French fries, the meat is butchered in house (except the shwarma). I mean they go through 220 kilos of shwarma a day which is those massive spits of heaven that slowly cook for hours to reach perfection in a lafa.

The prices there are very reasonable for a great shwarma (34 shekels) the skewers go from between 26 shekels in a pita to 85 shekels for a boneless rib eye steak on a plate. The staff there is very nice, they sort of speak english. The tables are clean, it doesn’t smell, and the bathrooms are OK. Also if you feel that you’ve eaten too much behind the place there is a shady cosmetics place that for a price will help you out.

So, if you are in Ramat Gan, go out of your way, look them up and enjoy a great meal that you won’t forget. I won’t.