Grill Point’s shwarmic wonder wheel beckons passersby.
Spell it shwarma or shawarma, I don’t care. Either way, the Middle Eastern sandwich of stacked meat roasted on vertical spit is one of my all-time favorites. Truth be told I am mesmerized by rotating, roasting meat whether it’s a whole goat or a tower of chicken or lamb slowly browning, just waiting to be shaved off into sandwiches. One of the best places in Queens to get an Israeli version of this sandwich is Grill Point, where they spell it shuwarma. Grill Point lies on the largely Israeli end of Main Street in Kew Garden Hills. It’s an area I wish I visited more often. So when my pal Meir suggested we have lunch there I immediately said yes.
The turkey lamb shuwarma has plenty of crunchy browned bits.
I ordered the lamb shuwarma ($10.10) and got a surprise, turkey. At first when I read “pita lamb turkey,”on my receipt I thought it was a mistake. The grill man assured me though that the spit he was carving from was composed of 60/40 blend of lamb and turkey, a meat that I begrudgingly eat every Thanksgiving. I was tempted to ask him whether Grill Point uses meat glue to bond the two, but I’m pretty sure the wonder substance is not kosher. In addition to the wonderfully sweet and spicy meat alloy, my pita was packed with creamy hummus, Israeli salad, and fried eggplant. Best of all there was a perfect balance of crunchy browned meat from the shwarmic wheel’s exterior and succulent flesh from within. Truly one of the best “shuwarma” in recent memory. (more…)
