How do.

Back once again with the renegade master, and this time around Shawarma Police have travelled some considerable distance with their D4 damager to report on some severely ill behaviour in the world of kebab – a mere 400 mile round trip to get some lunch to Manchester and back.

“BUT WHY? YOU CAN GET LUNCH LOADS OF PLACES NEARER – BOOTS DO A MEAL DEAL, THEN THERE’S GREGGS, AND…” yeah yeah, I know, calm down.

It all started when my mate Joe went “does anyone with a blog want to review my band’s final album”, and I went “yeah ok”, and then I did, and you can read this here, and then I remembered this was a kebab blog and not a music review blog, so I had to shoehorn in “relevant content” to keep the trolls from kicking off in the comments, so I asked Joe what his favourite kebab place was, and he said Falafel on Wilmslow Road, Manchester.

So we went.

At about half 11 or so, me and Joe alighted at Manchester’s Oxford Road station and wasted no time at all heading south along said road in order to get some food. We had, after all, headed down on an empty stomach, with only a coffee to keep us alive from the Cafe Nero opposite where BBC Manchester used to be before they deleted it. Technically, this was breakfast. We trotted on passed the main Manchester landmarks that were still there – the University of Manchester, the Academy, the world renowned Rusholme Lidl’s, until eventually we got here:

“Is this it?” I enquired?

“I think so…” came the reply. I had to be honest – it didn’t look like a kebabbery. No, it looked more like a trendy health juice bar. We went inside anyway. A few seconds later, having established that this wasn’t suitable for our needs, we left.

Me and Joe discussed this early setback in our quest for barbequed meat. “I’m sure it’s further along…” he reassured me. I was getting pretty hungry by this point, but we had come this far, so there was no turning back. Onwards and upwards! (we were heading south, so downwards, but whatever). As we headed further south, we passed what must have been ninety-two thousand, three hundred and twenty-nine viable lunch options for a place that may not even exist anymore – it had been ten or so years since Joe had been a student here. You see, Wilmslow Road has a nickname – Rusholme’s Curry Mile – but from what we could see, this was a complete misnomer – kebabs were where this place was at. Kebab place after kebab place after kebab place. Sure, I reckon you could get a decent enough curry on this road, but why on earth would you want to do that?

A few minutes later and we arrive. “Welcome to           falafel”, the sign read. I felt like telling a bear joke at this point – why the long paws? – until I remembered that the sign wouldn’t have answered me. I love the symmetry here – a bilingual sign in English (left to right) and Arabic (possibly Farsi, I’m no linguist) from right to left means that no part of the sign is left empty, apart from those two massive gaps.

Anyway, we went in.

What about that, ladies and gentlemen? You can frankly shove your Boots meal deal where the sun don’t shine at thems prices. Chicken Shawarma, chips and a drink for a FIVER? Sweet Lordy Lord! For the carb conscious potato avoider a single chicken shawarma was only tree fiddy – which is normally what this website would recommend, but we’d gone a long way that cold, December day – it was freezing, the snow was beginning to settle – we needed us a lamb hit. Two lamb shawarmas comin’ right up!

Joe doing his best “Ed Miliband eats a bacon butty” impression here – with apologies to the proprietors – this was the best photo I could get, and in no way reflects upon the quality of your food. Fact is, it’s difficult to look graceful when eating something, well, as huge as this was. Five pounds worth of grilled lamb shavings in a nan bread with salad and sauce. It was a beast of a meal. As we were seated, I thought before eating mine, we would look inside the beast:

This was nothing short of amazing, as you can see. A generous portion of meat – and one abnormally large bit over to your right there – really well cooked with a decent amount of salad. What’s not to like?

Well – it was a bit salty to be honest. Salt is good – helps bring out the flavour – and there was bags of flavour in this but it was all behind the salt. A bit of sauce would have helped counterbalance this, alas there was none on mine as you see. Overall it was still pretty good though, and well worth the trip – especially at the price.

Falafel, Wilmslow Road, Rusholme, Manchester

£5.00 Lamb Shawarma Wrap (£6 with chips and a drink)

8/10