Monthly Archives: February 2006

Best Shawerma in Riyadh

Living in Riyadh for the past three years, I can say that I have become an expert on shawerma. Actually, shawerma was not my favorite choice of fast food when I used to live in Hassa, but coming to Riyadh and going through the crap of many restaurants with high prices and bad food, I had come to the conclusion that shawerma seems to be a safe and cheap choice. However, with like a zillion restaurant in Riyadh offering shawerma, I started to be so picky about it.

So, after testing some of the well-known restaurants such as Mama Noura, Al-Karawan, and Shawermer, I found that Ya Mal Al-Sham restaurant was serving the best shawerma in Riyadh. And even though they were selling the sandwich for 4 riyals, one more riyal that you would usually pay for such thing, I was willing to pay the extra riyal for its goodness and deliciousness. However, good and delicious things do not live forever. Later on, Ya Mal’s shawerma had worsen very much. They started to make it greasy, and with so little chicken that a friend of mine has called it “the pencil sandwich.” Now, they are selling it for only 3 riyals, but it is still not as good as it used to be.

I had to go experimenting with shawerma again. After a few weeks of experimentation, I can say that the best shawrma in Riyadh currently is served by Shawermer. During my first stage of experimentation, Shawermer’s shawerma was bad; so bad that I thought it tastes like fish not chicken. But I think that they have improved much since then. Actually, when it was opened few years ago, Shawermaer introduced a new concept in the business of making this kind of food. They offer only shawerma (recently they added basbousa to their menu), and they have a unique style. They are the only restaurant to offer it with several flavors, such as cheese, hummus, and lemon and garlic, and they also offer the sandwiches as meals with Pepsi and French fries, a step that several restaurants followed later.

How about you Riyadh people? Who do you think offer the best shawerma sandwiches in the city? I’m not a native, and maybe I’ve been missing on something good, so have your say!

The Religious Tourism Business

Do you remember what happened when some pilgrims wanted to visit the Uhud Cave in Medina? Actually, this is not just the case in that location; it is the same thing with almost all what is left of the historic Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia. The Wahabbis don’t believe in the importance of such sites, and therefore they either destroy them or build walls around them to prevent others from seeing them. By sticking to the Wahabbis’ narrow interpretation of Islam, I think that our country is missing on some exceptional opportunities in religious tourism, and if SCT are serious about making tourism a real part of the national economy they should work very hard to change the current situation.

In a recent column, Abdul Aziz Al-Thukair suggests that the Ministry of Pilgrimage could arrange trips to Islamic sites, but I don’t see this as the best solution. I think such trips should be arranged by tourism companies, and can be supervised by SCT, but it is certainly has nothing to do any other part of the government, especially not the Ministry of Pilgrimage, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and the Religious Police. Tourism is a business, and these three entities clearly don’t know business.

A recent study has shown that men in Saudi Arabia …

A recent study has shown that men in Saudi Arabia spend more than women on their personal care. In fact, the Kingdom is the largest market in the region for men’s personal care products with about US$ 31m in sales in 2005. I have a question, though: where does all that money go? I can’t see the effect of such large spending on the state of “handsomeness” of Saudi men. Probably I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Or, maybe, you know what they say: you can’t buy good taste!

Will You Marry Me? No, Thanks!

Haya Abdul Aziz gives a typical story on how new marriages in Saudi Arabia go on, and says newlyweds should realize that starting a new life is difficult under the best of circumstances and it should never be done under a weight of loans and pressing financial obligations. The thing is, there is no other choice. A cousin of mine who is getting engaged this year told me that there is no way he is getting married without taking a loan. “Even though this loan would be from some family members, and I’m under no pressure to payback immediately, but I hate to take loans from anybody, even my family.” However, “there is no way I’m getting married without taking a loan,” he kept saying.

Those who know me personally know very well that I don’t agree with the mechanism of marriage in our society. How will I ever get married? I try to ignore questions like this because it is simply depressing. If you can read Arabic and want to know what kind of hell we have to go through in order to get married, take a look at Ibrahim’s blog, which is, btw, quite amusing and one of my favourite Saudi blogs.