The Newest Place for a Very Good Shawarma
Village restaurants on prominent corners often turn over with head-spinning frequency. So it was that Filipino spot, Flip Sigi, disappeared abruptly from 131 Seventh Avenue South, at West 10th Street, when another place popped up in its stead.
The Newest Place for a Very Good Shawarma
OMG Shawarma in the West Village opened earlier this month.
OMG Shawarma comes from Effy Maimon, the owner of a hairdressing salon on the Upper West Side. To help launch the place, he brought Ziv Gerti here from Tel Aviv, an Israeli street food maven who specializes in shawarma — the vertically twirling, composed-meat cylinder, also known as gyro in Greek establishments, doner in Turkish and German ones, and al pastor in Mexican taquerias.
The place is almost comically small, with a wedge-shaped counter with two spinning shawarmas behind it, while the relishes, sauces, pickled vegetables, and other accompaniments reside on display behind glass. On top of the counter, a daily selection of fried vegetables that may also become part of your shawarma pita, hero, or bowl ($17, $20, $25, respectively) are on display.
The shawarmas are particularly good — the chicken variety moist and dotted with bits of caramel-colored skin; the rarely seen veal framed with a toupee of lamb fat that melts down the surface of the meat, giving it a funkier flavor than what I’d expect from veal. The move is to get a combination of the two crammed into a puffy pita.
As far as condiments and vegetables: Definitely squirt on the tahini and orange amba — a pickled mango sauce. Add one or two deep-fried jalapenos from the daily selection of vegetables. The worker at the counter will stuff your pita, then put it on a tray with your selection of the side dishes, maybe including a dab of cucumber pickles and chopped tomatoes.
Also available as a main dish is the house hummus ($12 to $20), which may be decorated with shawarma, freshly fried falafel, or egg and eggplant — the latter paired to make a sabih of the kind popularized by Taim. Finally, chicken schnitzels are also available, fitted into any of the above formats. And that’s pretty much the extent of OMG’s menu, aside from a selection of American or Israeli sodas and juices.
