After the thrill of Wilkinson's I thought I'd grab some lunch in town before heading home for an even more thrilling afternoon of DIY. There was a bowl of stew with my name on it at the Country Kitchen Bakery, but when I arrived a lengthy queue was forming and I couldn't be bothered waiting. Casting my eyes around the food hall I noticed Taste of Arabia next door, which enticed me in mainly because it was completely deserted.
One plate of shawarma in pitta with chips and salad for £3.99 later I was rather glad I'd been so easily swayed. It doesn't look all that great, but everything was spot on. Spicy shreds of slightly chewy but very tasty lamb, heavily spiced with salt, chilli and possibly sumac, stuffed into a perfectly toasted pitta and doused in yoghurt and chilli sauce (out of cheap catering pack bottles but what do you expect for 4 quid). Everything in the carefully arranged salad was very fresh and provided cooling contrast to the spicy meat. Even the chips were good. They were the budget freezer pack variety served by crappy chain pubs the nation over, but actually fried properly (they're nearly always underdone in pubs for some reason) they went down a treat.
I have no idea what the particular aims of this social enterprise are, but they do have the tagline 'bringing distant cultures closer'. In the half hour or so I was there they didn't have a single other customer, so it was more 'distant culture being completely ignored by the local culture'. The nice Turkish man doing the cooking said they were there permanently, so please do pay them a visit before someone pulls the plug. What better way to bring distant cultures closer than by selling good kebabs in Wakefield market?
8/10
Taste of Arabia
Wakefield Market Food Hall
Union Street
Wakefield
WF1 3AD
