We both love shawarma (actually we love to eat full stop) and were eager to try out the local version. I guess we had expected to employ old tricks like peeking into the store to see if the meat looks like it's been on the spit for days or the chicken looks undercooked - or to check out the number of guests (or lack of) sitting down eating. Possibly we would even have tried to find a place that did not have a menu in English just to avoid the common tourist traps.
In Kuwait, however, there is a much easier way: check if there are nice cars outside with people inside them waiting. Here's why: the good places may be not much more than a hole in the wall or a small store with a few plastic chairs outside but the locals know what's good. And the locals drive really nice cars - big 4x4s or fancy sports cars - that they pull up curbside (to avoid trying to find parking and to avoid walking the 10 steps into the store to place their order) and wait for one of the staff to run out of the store to take the order and bring their food.
I can imagine that in the scorching heat of the summer it's also a question of wanting to avoid to step out of the air-conditioned car but even now when temperatures are below 20 degrees Celcius (68 Fahrenheit) and feel colder I saw a woman pull up outside a Starbucks and honk her horn expecting someone to come out of the store to take her order (they didn't but I guess she figured it was worth trying).
In one of the really popular places the place itself is not more than a few square meters with 2 tables outside but in the weekend I've seen them have something like 4 men outside just to run back and forth to the cars that queue down the road (there's obviously no drive-in like at McDonald's so it certainly doesn't help the already bad traffic jams in that area). Talk about flexible capacity - as they add men to the team they just provide them with a yellow baseball cap to indicate they belong to the store.
... in my experience ... and I should be carefull not to offend anyone here (sorry in advance) ... the arabs are not the moooost picky with cleanness, unfortunately. So maybe its not the best to measure it by the locals... ;-)
ReplyDeleteWell, quite frankly I have also been to places in the Arab world that have been very dirty and where people seemed to not care at all. So far, though, the people here seem to care a lot - maybe not in public places (because someone else will come and clean up after them) but their cars are always clean (someone is washing it for them), their clothes ironed and crisp, personal hygiene excellent. Maybe it's related to income - I mean, if you're poor you care more about other things. I have still not seen a dirty restaurant here - maybe they are hiding them :-)
ReplyDeleteOkay, so now I have seen a dirty restaurant, but it was actually a Thai restaurant and not local. I have a European friend, though, who has eaten there and says the food is excellent even if the place is dirty.
ReplyDeleteApparently the food hygiene here is controlled quite frequently by some governmental bureau or something, so you can't get away with much.