My second last meal of my five-year stint in my Western Sydney workplace was shawarma delivered from Shawarma al-Halabi, a recently opened shawarmatisserie in the heartland of Merrylands, which until this point I had thought was named Shawarma al-Habibi.
We ordered via Uber Eats, where surprisingly there was on upcharge to cover what are no doubt some quite significant platform fees. My (new) wife (she was in the building allegedly studying) and I shared a chicken shawarma and a lamb shawarma. Both shawarmas are externally identical and thus I have not bored my already bored readers even further with a superfluous external shot.
The chicken shawarma ($10) was not the best, not the worst, it had good flavouring with the mix of garlic sauce and pickles, however felt a little bit dry and could have done with some more even more garlic sauce. The best Western Sydney shawarma I’ve had has been from Armani Restaurant and Armani’s remains the benchmark by which I compare my shawarmas. Perhaps Halabi apologists will argue that theirs are made in a different (Syrian) style, a different tradition and therefore are meant to be dry and not moist but I think that at least I think that subjectively at least it would have been better with a bit of extra sauce. I would rate Al-Halabi over Albeik however, which suffers from the same problem.
The lamb shawarma ($12) was in comparison quite significantly better. The addition of more greenery and sauce with parsley, onion, tomatoes, pickles and tahini meant that it was just overall more moist than the chicken one. Each bite of it added a medley of flavours into the mouth and was much easier to swallow.
I would recommend the lamb rather than the chicken and if you have the opportunity to have two I would recommend two of the lamb rather than one of the lamb and one of the chicken. These are my thoughts, don’t @ me.
Shawarma Al Halabi
137 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands NSW 2160
