Gavin's guide, on SPOT
Ugly Delicious: As the Meat Turns
3 spots · Los Angeles, United States
Ugly Delicious season 2, episode 4, built entirely around meat on a spindle and what happens when it crosses a border. Shawarma and mezze at a Lebanese room that has fed Armenian and Arab Los Angeles for decades, a Boyle Heights counter run by brothers who put Lebanese kebab inside a Mexican menu, and a saj griddle in Oakland turning out mana eesh. It is the clearest statement of the show's whole argument: the interesting food is what happens at the seams.
#1
Carousel
· Lebanese · $$
Chang sat down here for the long mezze meal that anchors this guide, with Reem Assil, cookbook author Anissa Helou and producer Chris Ying, hosted by Madame Rose. The table ate Lebanese mezze and talked about shawarma, about where a spinning cone of meat comes from and who gets the credit for it.
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Lebanese mezze spreadHummusKibbeh nayehShawarma
#2
X'tiosu Kitchen
· Lebanese · $
Chang ate a chorizo kebab here with black bean hummus and a tahini salsa verde, which is this episode’s whole idea on one tray. The brothers who run the counter are Oaxacan cooks who trained in a Lebanese kitchen, and they did not pick a side when they opened their own place. Order the chorizo kebab, then the chicken shawarma taco, which is what the regulars come for.
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Chorizo kebabBlack bean hummusTahini salsa verdeChicken shawarma taco
#3
Reem's California
· Lebanese · $$
Reem Assil is shown baking mana'eesh on a saj she improvised by flipping a tortilla comal upside down into a dome. That fix is the argument this guide keeps making, a tool built for one cuisine pressed into service for another. Her bakery now runs at Jack London Square in Oakland, which is where to go for the bread straight off the dome.
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Mana'eesh off the sajZa'atar mana'eesh
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