There’s something fishy in Garden’s Street these days. This article in today’s Jordan Times made me laugh. I think most agree that when it comes to food, the ingenuity Jordanians have is boundless.
â??As sales of chicken shawerma dropped in the capital following the detection of avian flu in Ajloun, one Amman restaurant is serving fish shawerma to minimise lost profits.
Customers said it was a good alternative.
â??I thought serving fish shawerma would be something rare that people would like and at the same time it would make up for the low sales of chicken shawerma,â? said Suleiman, who began selling his specialty two months ago.â?Â
Prices?
According to Janem, a small fish shawerma sandwich is sold at JD0.60 (84 cents), a large one at JD0.90 ($1.20), and a fish shawerma platter costs JD1.5 ($2.11)
The prices are roughly JD0.20-0.30 more than their chicken counterparts.
One customer said something which made me laugh: â??Though it is delicious, it leaves you with bad breathâ?Â
If you go around to many restaurants in Jordan you will notice this ingenuity all over. Some of them come up with the strangest sandwiches that are a menu of dishes you’ve never even heard of. The funniest names like ‘saroo5’ (rocket). The Saj places are restaurants which I also consider purely Jordanian ingenuity, mixing a bit of the old traditions with a more modern taste. There’s the falafal hut in Swefieh that blends falafal served Subway style, I don’t know if it’s still there though.
Suffice to say all of these restaurants out sell the international franchises, which I think is the cool part. It’s good to know that in the midst of a foreign invasion, some local flavour is still alive and thriving. It is a source of pride.
Now we just need an alternative to high fuel prices.
fish shawarma yane ma fe shawarma.
“Fish Shawerma” sounds like and Abu Majoob cartoon!
good alternative but i dont think i would eat it…i think ppl will also start to cook mansaf with fish! ewww..
hopefully, this whole bird flu epidemic will end soon, so ppl in jordan can continue eating really good shawerma..yah, it better end soon, i want some when i go there this summer!!
That’s just wrong.
urdunieh, yeah i agree, i mean of course i would probably never be brave enough to eat this stuff, mostly because im not a fish fan. but its nice that theres an alternative and theres a lot of people who like it.
something different
Hey, I have to ask you guys and girls something if you don’t mind.
Are there any particular dishes that are unique to Jordan or regions of Jordan?
I know that there is a lot of commonality between the cuisine of most Arab countries and that this commonality of flavors and tastes tends to extend even into adjacent areas like Greece and Armenia, for instance, but are there some foods that tend to be uniquely Jordanian? Are there dishes that are unique or more popular in the Levant region, than say, the Arab peninsula.
Do you have any fusion food in that part of the world. For instance, in Jamaica you can find places that have managed to fuse Caribbean and Chinese cuisine. In the States, ‘Eurasian’ food (a blend of European and Asian styles) has been popular in the last few years. Anything similar in the Middle East?
Tell me a little bit about Jordanian and Arab cuisine, please.
“Now we just need an alternative to high fuel prices.”
We all do, that’s for sure.
samaritan, there is a lot of cuisine in the region, especially Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan, the area known as Al Sham before it was devided. Although every country has it’s national dish now. Most of them involve rice. I think we share a lot of similar dishes with nations like Greece and Italy. For Jordan the national dish is mansaf. It’s a rather large dish, intended for a large family
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/facts3.html
Thanks for the link and the information Nas! 🙂
Unfortunately, your national dish, mansaf, is based on lamb. While my stepfather, a professional chef, is crazy about lamb, I can’t stand it. 🙁 He thinks I am out of my mind not to like lamb. I don’t know how anyone can eat it. No, I’ll stick to beef, fish and poultry.
Some questions for anybody familiar with Jordan:
1)What kind of fish do Jordanians eat?
2) Do they raise any freshwater fish in Jordan?
3) Are Jordanians big on pickling vegetables – pickling is, for some reason, one of the things I always think of when I think of Middle Eastern cuisine? Is this accurate?
4) In the United States we have a bird we call ‘turkey’ (even though it is native to the Americas). I’ve heard in Turkey they refer to turkey as ‘American Bird.’ What do Jordanians call turkey? Do they eat turkey?
5) Are chili peppers used a great deal in Jordanian cuisine? I know that in Yemen they make a chili paste called schug which is supposed to be really hot but very good. Do they make anything similar in Jordan or the greater Al Sham/Levant area?
Doent sound too yummy!
I’d rather skip:p ba3dain there’s always meat shawerma 😕
Fish = fishbones… fellet, shawerma whatever! I like fish more than chicken and meat though
I’m not a big fan of fish, in other words I’d never buy this thing but I must admit that it’s a cool idea. Many people would apprecite a fish shawerma sandwich regardless of the availability of chicken I’m sure 😀
All the luck!
You should see the saroo5 in saudi arabia its a shawerma sandwich which is about 15cm long and with a diameter of about 5-6cm, with ketchup, fries, chicken, sauce and some other stuff and its only for 1JD. You really should try it.
You know what im gonna go to this place and try this fish shawerma, however it is a bit expensive, considering you have to have 2 or 3 to get stuffed.
1)What kind of fish do Jordanians eat?
2) Do they raise any freshwater fish in Jordan?
Not big fish eaters…no water…except in Aqaba…people go there to eat fish. Egyptians eat a lot of fish, and the whole meghreb region: morocco, algeria, tunis, libya. Middle east is more rice.
3) Are Jordanians big on pickling vegetables – pickling is, for some reason, one of the things I always think of when I think of Middle Eastern cuisine? Is this accurate?
Yes there’s a lot of pickling in Jordan and the middle east
4) In the United States we have a bird we call â??turkeyâ?? (even though it is native to the Americas). Iâ??ve heard in Turkey they refer to turkey as â??American Bird.â?? What do Jordanians call turkey? Do they eat turkey?
Yes we are familiar with this bird that you call “tur-key’? lol we’re not primative man. Yes they eat it in Jordan, usually cold cuts though. It’s called deek 7abash.
5) Are chili peppers used a great deal in Jordanian cuisine? I know that in Yemen they make a chili paste called schug which is supposed to be really hot but very good. Do they make anything similar in Jordan or the greater Al Sham/Levant area?
chilis, hmm, not so much. it’s used as an appetizer. people usually serve fresh pepper and pickles. but for cooking, not really. our food isnt spicy.
I dont think I would like this any more than I like fish tacos in California.
Thanks for the answers Nas.
“Yes we are familiar with this bird that you call â??tur-keyâ?? ”
I figured you knew the identity of the bird, I just wasn’t sure if I called it turkey, you would recognize what bird I was referring to. 😉
samaritan, I lived in Canada for 17 years so yeah, I know what a turkey is 😀
fish sharma?
sounds disgusting!!
visited istanbul a few years ago and discovered that they’ve got the absolute best shwarma in the world!
when i got back home to israel i couldn’t/wouldn’t eat the local shwarma for a couple of years.
peace, shalom, salaam,
Dry Bones
Israel’s Political Comic Strip Since 1973
Since fish is way less “solid” than fish, I wonder how big the “Sikh” gets? I remember seeing a huge one of beef at Shawarm Reem at one of my trips to Jordan and I was very impressed!
In Tunisia, shawarma was fairly newly introduced and people really like it.
I would personally try fish shawarma just out of curiousity and also because I love fish! I guess with the ma3danoussiya sauce it might be good…
I abviously meant fish less solid than chicken 🙂
UmZayd, shawarma reem is famous for its ‘seekh’ and it still takes an hour to get a sandwich there with the crowds of people 🙂
I saw shawerma lahmet ghazal yesterday!!(deer meat)..don’t think I’ll be trying any of these two!
salam, lool in Amman? what, are they hunting them in the zoos? 😀
“Now we just need an alternative to high fuel prices.”
maybe if we put falafel in the car tanks, the cars will produce their own gas.