Shawarma and shrimp

We heard about a restaurant in San Clemente that served shawarma, we headed down there one day, just to find out that he only did shawarma on the weekends, it took us a couple weeks to get there on the right night, but boy was it worth the wait! 

Chifa Surf is the name, and if you remember from an earlier post, Chifa is Chinese food, so not only does he do shawarma, but he does Chinese, great to have two very different options to seafood! He, is Pablo, a young man originally from Lima, Peru, who has traveled much and studied cooking in Israel, he is a master! 

We got there early the other evening, he was just getting set up, but you can see the shawarma doing it's thing, let me see what Wikipedia says about shawarma.

Shawarma (Arabic: شاورما / ALA-LC: shāwarmā; Urdu: شوارمہ) is aLevantine^[1][2] meat preparation, where lamb, chicken, turkey, beef,veal, or mixed meats are placed on a spit (commonly a vertical spit in restaurants), and may be grilled for as long as a day. Shavings are cut off the block of meat for serving, and the remainder of the block of meat is kept heated on the rotating spit. Although it can be served in shavings on a plate (generally with accompaniments),shawarma also refers to a sandwich or wrap made with shawarmameat. Shawarma is usually eaten with tabbouleh, fattoush, taboon bread, tomato, and cucumber. 

I'm pretty sure he said this was chicken, and his toppings are lettuce/cabbage slaw, tomato, onions, and the wonderful flavorful sauces. His sister is in Israel and was trying to ship hummus and spices over, yummy!

As the meat cooks, it's juices drip in the pan, then when he cuts the meat off, he let's it fall into the pan, where it swims in the juices just a minute before being placed in the sandwich. This little tabletop meat spit is powered by a gas tank. At one point in the evening he went across the street to another restaurant and came back with another gas tank, we thought this one was out, but...

Somebody had ordered Chinese, so he started up his inside cooking space to prepare it. One of these days we will have to try his Chinese food, but the shawarma is just soooo good! Oh yeah, the shawarma sandwich...$2.75

We tried the restaurant next door the day we went looking for shawarma on a weekday, and it was Muy Rico! (Very delicious) We tried something new, camaron a la plancha, and were not disappointed!

We had been getting pescado frito, and sometimes it was pan fried, but other times it was deep fried (not what we were looking for), but we found a la plancha, is iron plate, so it is more or less seared on a hot grill. Perfecto! So when we saw they had shrimp done that way, we jumped at the chance to try it.

This was 8 shrimp, and I know I got 8 to a pound, so we got a whole pound of shrimp! Very tasty, and so was the fish. We usually get two different things and share, yum. Shrimp $7, and fish $4.50.

The ensalad is shredded cabbage, cucumber and carrots, with a delightful lime/ vinegar dressing, we can care less about the patacones, (plantain rounds) but all in all a great meal. The outdoor seating is in the shade usually, which is always a plus, and only a storefront from the beach, so beautiful view and breeze. Definatly one to try!

Just got word from Catalina, that we have more papers to sign in Manta, so we cancel our lunch date, and will get on the bus. Our lunch date was with someone who also is working with her, but has a furnished condo and was going to loan us an end table and lamp, aww the little things. But there's always tomorrow...Hasta mañana! The adventure continues!