Sunday, August 22, 2010

The King Restaurant/1894 Centre Street/West Roxbury, MA 02132

The King Restaurant
How do you not want to try a place with a name like "The King?"  All signs pointed to the food being good at this modest little spot on Centre Street in West Roxbury.  Pretty pictures of Lebanon on the walls, the entrancing Arabic Language music videos on the TV in the corner, and the two spits of Shawarma in the kitchen got my hopes up for one serious meal.  I wish I had better things to say about the food here because the guy running the place the day I went was nice as can be and extremely accommodating, its just that the food was, in a word: boring.
Lamb/Beef and Chicken Shawarma with Hommous, Pickles and Salad 
I realize that shawarma often lives or dies by the sauce that is put on it sopping through the pita bread, and I did get a meal and not a sandwich, but even pouring the tahina sauce on top of the overly dry and not-all-that-flavorful chicken, beef, and lamb didn't do much to help the overall experience.  Luckily, there are bottles of hot sauce on the counter that made the meat more bearable, but it only helped so much.  I count on the Lebanese to make the best hommous anywhere, but this hommous was more Greek that Lebanese--grainy, watery, and sorely lacking in tahini.  There is some good that goes with this story.  The pickles alone were almost worth going back for, the tomatoes seem to have been picked off the vine that day and the salad was quite lovely, but all in all the shawarma meal at The King is pretty disappointing.  I wouldn't refuse to go ever again if I were in the area, but I'm certainly not racing back anytime soon.  Although the music was pretty entertaining.


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