Happy New Year! Welcome to the first post of 2010! 2010 sounds so futuristic — had you mentioned 2010 to me back in 1984, I would have told you we’d be driving around in flying cars by now.
To those of you who enjoyed a happy, healthy, 2009, I wish you continued good fortune in the coming year. And to the many of you for whom 2009 was a year you’d like to erase from memory Matrix-style, keep plugging away; there’s no place to go but up.
I’d hoped to start off the new year’s posts with a bang, a big wow of a restaurant I could recommend wholeheartedly. Didn’t happen.
For whatever reason, the words “Under New Management” gave me pause, portending ominously of the food to come.
Grill Point’s an Israeli/Middle Eastern spot — I figured this would be the place to grab a quality falafel or kabob. One of the lunch specials caught my eye, a lamb and turkey shawarma with two sides and a soup. ”Perfect!” I thought.
The split pea soup was the most successful part of the meal. Verging on watery, but tasty with its large chunks of carrots and scattering of whole peas.
The shawarma came with a round of pita and my two sides — stewed okra in a tomato sauce, and sliced potatoes.
The okra was just okay — didn’t have much taste. Same for the decidedly bland potatoes.
But my main problem was with the shawarma.
From previous eating experience, my understanding of a shawarma is that it’s a sandwich of marinated meat sliced off a spit, wrapped in a pita, and loaded with all sorts of goodies like tahini or hummus, pickles, onions and tomatoes.
It’s possible the folks at Grill Point served the pita separately so it wouldn’t get soggy, but I really wasn’t in the mood to construct my own sandwich, and besides, with no toppings, there wasn’t much to construct, anyhow.
What I had was a mound of, I hate to say it, flavorless turkey strips and a doughy round of pita.
Worst of all, where was the lamb?
It’s not as though this meat was sliced off a spit and the turkey and lamb were mixed together. This was clearly all turkey. Disappointing.
Haven’t had a truly lackluster meal in quite a while, so let’s hope I got mine out of the way early in ’10. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s no place to go but up.
Grill Point
1305 North Ave.
New Rochelle, NY
914-637-6263
2 Comments
What you ordered was a plate, if you wanted a sandwich you have toask for a Pita or Lafa sandwich, which is also on the lunch special. In the sandwiches they make there they can add hummus, tahina, pickles, onions, colslaw, french fries, Israeli Salad, and shoug.
I must not have seen the other option. Although I always that by definition, a “shawarma” was a sandwich that came wrapped in a pita.