For the past two nights, I have been whacking two lamb kebab sandwiches for dinner…each night. Don’t ask me why. It must be the medication I’m on. But then again, some two weeks ago I was hunting for lamb kebabs at a Lebanese restaurant. There are locals selling kebabs but are mostly beef and chicken. Chicken is okay, but lamb has that distinctive taste. It’s bad…but it’s nice.
My first taste of lamb kebab sandwich was back on Boxing Day of 1980 at Picaddilly Circus in London. We had arrived from New York, smack bang in boring old London where everything was closed for Christmas and Boxing Day…and our saviour was this kebab joint there. As a student I would save up just to be able to eat my lamb kebab sandwich there. Just there, and nowhere else. Not even at the arab enclave at Bayswater would draw me away from the joint at Picaddilly Circus…and I was staying near Bayswater then (Porchester Terrace to be exact). So, imagine, I’d walk to the Queensway tube station, change trains at Oxford Circus, and down to Picaddilly Circus just for that (I never took the bus).
I don’t think I ever had lamb kebab again until 1998 when I performed my Umrah (minor pilgrimage). I had my first lamb kebab for buka puasa (breaking of the fast) in Madinah, and sat on the floor, in the open, with several pilgrims from Indonesia. It was during the Asian Financial Crisis, and I pitied them who were eating yogurt with salad. So I shared my lamb kebab with them (in Madinah, the portion’s huge). The next year I would do the same again, this time adding another joint above the Marwah hill in Mecca as a favourite joint (this joint had fresh mango juice. Just mango..no water or sugar added. Indah Water would have loved me if they were there to suck sh*t). Then, my one month in Mecca and Madinah in 2001 during my Haj, I had lamb kebab everyday until I got so sick of it and vowed never to eat lamb kebab again.
However, in 2003, I missed that distinctive taste again. And in Geneva, my colleague and I frequented this Lebanese joint and pigged-out. It was lamb kebab again from the moment we arrived, until the day we left Geneva. And this happened again during the next trip to Geneva so much so that I got special discounts for my visits there. Well, I tried the one at the Lebanese Restaurant at the President Wilson Hotel (on Quai Wilson, 5 minutes from Lac Leman) but it can set you back by close to RM200 just you alone. So the RM24 per piece lamb kebab sandwich at that joint by the rue de Lausanne (on the way to the Gare de Cornavin) was the best choice…and cheap by Geneva’s standards (a Big Mac can set you back by RM15).
After that it was the usual trips to Kyros Kebab…now that is where I get my lamb kebab sandwiches from.
My doctor’s going to kill me.
SeaDemon Says 