A slice of meat !

Enroute to Petra, an evening spent in Amman engraved its mark on my 'nostalgia gastronomique' - as I call it.

Amman, as I remember is the biggest city of the Hashemite Kingdom and home to many cultural heritages, initially built on nine hills, it enjoys all four seasons including rain and snowfall.

That evening, I was wandering on the streets, when I saw this extremely long queue of Jordanians waiting in an alley...as I came closer, I could smell the air filled with the aroma of char grilled meat. On entering the lane, what I saw was an absolute culinary visual treat.

It was a small kitchen with two large size rotisserie grills..full of meat and chefs with their knives continuously slicing it away to feed the hungry queue. It was a local Shawarma shop which was serving only Shawarma rolls, the only three menu options available were that of chicken, lamb and duck.

The shawarma grills had almost fifty kilos of meat on each of them and was about to get over within the next few hours. Two dedicated chefs were just slicing the meat as per the order and the third one was rolling it in the pita with the choice of fillings... I watched them for almost twenty minutes befor my turn came.... I ordered a lamb shawarma and before I could blink, the order was infront of me with the look on the man's face - asking me to hurry up and get lost !

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The first bite.....and I realised that it was worth the wait.

The soft meat with crisp lettuce and pickled vegetables were a great marriage. The aftertaste of the sour yoghurt and tahini marination leaves you lingering for more...and before you get a control over yourself after such a delightful experience, kaput ! its over...

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For just 1.8 JD, that meal was economical and if you want to sit down and relax, this shop had an uptown outlet with a seating adding to those extra dinars...