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The Kebab Shop
9th and Market
East Village (What-what!?)
San Diego

There’s meat. And there’s stick. The two did not come together without brutality. However violent the origins of meat on a stick, as one, they satiate the cravings of East Village cavemen and women alike at a little place called The Kebab Shop.

Not everyone likes to be hit over the head and dragged by the hair, but we can all dance around the campfire in primordial glee, meat on stick held high, celebrating one of the only restaurants in town where eating with one’s hands isn’t frowned upon, but expected!

Although the juicy flesh of the Salmon Kebab, marinated in a sweet and savory concoction, is enough to evoke victorious war-hoot-hollerings deep from the lungs of loin-clothed-clad East Village Vikings—I’d be selling the place short if all I raved about was meat on a friggin’ stick.

Over the course of several visits to The Kebab Shop in which I dined solely on (you guessed it) meat on a stick, one day I finally succumbed to my carbo cravings and shouted in my most aggressive huntress-tone: ‘Give me a DONER!’

I took a seat and observed my surroundings. An interesting mix of peoples indeed. To my right, a band of fashionable, G-Star Denim rockin’ model types clearly of East Village decent; across the dining room huddled a pack of wild bikers in tight pants and heads bands, likely in migration from the North Park region of town. My hunger pangs sharpened as I admired the plump calf of one such biker. It wasn’t his time just yet. Right then my name was called.

With the unabashed fervor of a starving beast, I tore into what can best be described as glorified gyro-burrito; but alas, such an ignorant comparison won’t suffice the bounties I discovered within lightly toasted, chewy flatbread, delicious in and of itself. Tender lamb meat pranced across a pasture of leafy greens dressed with tangy yogurt sauce, a fresh crunch of purple onion and herbaceous burst of mint, basil and oregano were at once ignited by a douse of house-made hot sauce.

I looked around The Kebab Shop once again, careful not to take both eyes off my prized meal, and spotted an East Villager mouthing a falafel, his mate sinking her teeth into the soft, baked bread of a Shawarma. Appropriately, a North Park biker sat grazing his plate of foliage and grains; Algerian eggplant salad, rich with roasted vegetables next to a mound of Tabouli, cous-cous flecked with sprigs of fresh herbs. Bam Bam’s Pebbles sat adorningly at his side, her veggie kebab pointed straight toward her mouth.

Hopefully this scene needn’t be painted in ox blood across a cave wall to illustrate my point: The Kebab Shop offers a delectable taste of the foods in large part responsible for the survival of human kind. The first being to spear a beast was—well. On to something.