Heeb

For some time, Jewdar would hear of the high-quality but low-kosher schwarma offered at the Israeli-owned Chickpea restaurants in the East Village of Manhattan, and feel nothing but a sense of rage-inducing betrayal. All those years of swamp-draining and tree planting and Palestinian-expelling, and all we have to show for it is treyf shawarma?

At last, however, the Zionist dream (well, this Zionist’s dream at any rate) of high-quality, reasonably-priced kosher shawarma is being fulfilled. Chickpea has dropped the name, and added a hechsher, and is being reborn as the glatt kosher Name Our Glatt Kosher Restaurant. (The name is bad, but whoever comes up with the best alternative by May 1 can win $3,000, which buys an awful lot of grilled meat.)

Unlike many such restaurants, the tahina, amba and charif is on the table, liberating diners from the petty tyranny of the guys putting the shawarma together (the one circumstance in which the UN isn’t willing to condemn the Israelis). We can’t recommend entering the contest (we’re already planning on winning, so you’d just be wasting your time), but we exercise all our considerable moral authority as Heeb‘s kosherest heeb to order those of you reading this to check out the restaurant as soon as Passover is over.