One spit, two traditions, and a birthday that needs no explaining
Taco Al-Shawarma is our blended menu, and at a birthday it does something no single-cuisine board manages: it puts two familiar things on one table so that nobody has to be talked into either. Birria, al pastor and steak tacos sit beside kofta kebab, mixed grill and mezze, and the room picks without anyone explaining the concept.
The joke underneath it is that there is no concept. A shawarma spit and a taco trompo are the same machine doing the same job — carved marinated meat into warm bread — and Mexico and the Levant arrived at it independently. Once the meat is halal there is nothing keeping them apart.
Which is the practical part. Our al pastor is beef, not pork, so the dish that normally comes off a taco menu for a mixed guest list stays on it.
- Birria, al pastor, beef, steak, chicken and shrimp tacos — all zabiha-sourced
- Kofta kebab, mixed grill and chicken tajine from the other shore
- Mezze, Greek salad, royal couscous and steamed vegetable salad
- Mexican rice, refried beans, elote, guacamole and loaded nachos
Two dessert traditions and a cake already on the table
This is the one menu where the dessert question gets genuinely interesting at a birthday, because there are two answers on it. Churros and tres leches on one side, baklava and premium kunafa on the other.
The temptation is to order both and then discover the cake is still coming. What works better is a small plate of one of them — usually the kunafa, which people have opinions about — kept out for the whole afternoon, and the cake left to be the event it is supposed to be.
It is the easiest table to feed a divided room from
Birthdays gather people who do not otherwise eat together: one side of a family, then the other, then colleagues, then children. This menu is the one we send when the guest list is described to us that way.
Nobody is served a compromise dish. There is no vegetarian tray in the corner — the mezze, couscous, salads and elote are the menu rather than the accommodation — and there is no pork and no alcohol anywhere in the kitchen, so the whole table is available to the whole room without a single quiet conversation about it.
