Inspiration to fusion

I paid a visit to the new Phoenicia Deli this weekend. Well, I was in the area for a different reason, but I thought I'd drop in. The place is bright and shiny, with an area for the savory foods, as well as a separate seating area for coffee, pastries and gelato, complete with comfy seating and board games. I'll have to check that out in the future. But I decided to look into their main food line.






I was impressed by what looked like a custom built brick oven, the kind that accumulates the blistering temperatures needed to make amazing pizzas and flat breads.





I hope I was able to hide my disappointment when, on closer inspection, I discovered that it was simply a facade built around a standard conveyor belt oven, akin to the ones in typical fast food sandwich shops. I did find on the far end, rotating on vertical spits, are no less that four different kinds of shawarma. And what assuaged my disappointment was the discovery that they'll sell shawarma meat by the pound.

But what to do with shaved shawarma meat but no pita bread? Why, stuff it into french bread, more accurately, the crusty rolls proferred by our local Vietnamese bakeries. I toasted the bread lightly, stuffed it with the shaved meat, some mixed Lebanese pickles, carrots, and tahini sauce.






Behold, the banh mi shawarma. Actually, they should use tahini more often on this type of bread.