Where In The UK Should You Actually Live?

[Gups]

Kebabs are post-pub food generally. The inferior doner is more popular because it can be served imediately. Folks don't want to wait for 5-10 mins for a shish

[Brazen]

In British kebab shops you ask for chicken or lamb; shish or doner. There's a few more exotic varieties like kofte, which is minced lamb on a stick. And you can always get a "mixed kebab" if you can't decide. Or just (doner) kebab meat and chips.

They are generally served in a pitta bread with a pile of salad and either chilli sauce (tomato-based) or garlic sauce (mayonnaise).


Or in a wrap:


Interestingly, I'd only had lamb doners in pitta bread with chilli sauce until a London Languish meet where I was introduced to chicken doner, wraps and garlic sauce all in one drunk, delicious go. Thanks Shelf 

As I side note, I just remarked at work how difficult it was to find an appetising photos of a doner kebab, and got the reply, "There's a good reason for that..." 

[Syt]

The wraps go by Dürüm Kebab here. Or just Dürüm.

Most places have chicken or lamb, rarely you may find beef.

Fun factoid: on the 7-10 minute walk from the subway to my apartment I pass three Turkish restaurants and half a dozen kebab shops.

[Josquius]

I need Brits to tell me what the fuck is up with Manchester..  All I know is that Man U is there (bad), and The Smiths and some other bad ass bands are from there (good).

England's second city.
Half of the country's good music does seem to come from there.
In many ways a scaled down London.

[Admiral Yi]

We have pretty much all the same stuff, just that we go with Lebanese/Greek whatever names instead of the, what...Turkish?  Pakistani??

[garbon]

Depends where you are, Yi. We've at least a few Turkish versions here.

[Syt]

We have pretty much all the same stuff, just that we go with Lebanese/Greek whatever names instead of the, what...Turkish?  Pakistani??

Turkish for us.

[Admiral Yi]

@Grab On.

You can find a Mongolian restaurant somewhere in NYC.  In 99.9% of the US, it's going to be called a gyro.

[garbon]

I don't think that's true. Many parts of the us don't even say gyro.

[garbon]

Quick search and SF is split between gyro shops and kebab (not shish).

[Admiral Yi]

Turkish for us.

So Doner Kebab is Turkish, right?  Now that makes sense in Germany with your Turkish population, but why did the UK go with Turkish?  Surely there are more Levantines in the UK than Turks.

[Duque de Bragança]

Kebab is still called called Sandwich grec in Paris, less so in the province. Döner is seldom used.
But then the sandwich grec appeared in Greek restaurants and was not seen cheap, fast food at first in the '70s, it was also called gyros. It changed in the '90s.
If the kebab/gyros it's with beef, it's called Sandwich américain sometimes.

The wraps go by Dürüm Kebab here. Or just Dürüm.

Most places have chicken or lamb, rarely you may find beef.

Fun factoid: on the 7-10 minute walk from the subway to my apartment I pass three Turkish restaurants and half a dozen kebab shops.

I confirm since Syt lives in the Barbès-Rochechouart area of Vienna.

[Admiral Yi]

It freaked me out in Paris when I walked by gyro joints and saw big cones of raw stacked lamb, all red and primitive looking.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Turkish for us.

So Doner Kebab is Turkish, right?  Now that makes sense in Germany with your Turkish population, but why did the UK go with Turkish?  Surely there are more Levantines in the UK than Turks.

I think it may be due to Turkish Cypriots. I had my first doner kebab back in the 1970s in London, it was a novelty to me at that time (moving down from Newcastle). The kebab place was run by Turkish Cypriots and they (Turkish Cypriots generally that is) were early immigrants to the UK (starting in the 1920s). Later on kebab shops were opened by all sorts of other nationalities but by that time the name of the food was fixed.

[Syt]

It freaked me out in Paris when I walked by gyro joints and saw big cones of raw stacked lamb, all red and primitive looking.

Similar to this?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab

Austria
Doner kebab shops can be found in all cities across Austria. Kebabs (rarely referred to as "Döner") outsell burgers or the traditional Würstel (sausage) stands.[35] The range of doner is similar to other German speaking countries, but one is more likely to find a chicken kebab in central Vienna than lamb or beef kebab.

Germany
A version developed to suit German tastes by Turkish immigrants in Berlin has become one of Germany's most popular fast food dishes. Annual sales in Germany amount to €2.5 billion.[41] Veal, chicken, and becoming increasingly more popular, turkey ("Truthahn"), are widely used instead of lamb, particularly by vendors with large ethnic German customer bases, for whom lamb is traditionally less preferred.
Döner, common German style (Berlin)

Typically, along with the meat, a salad consisting of chopped lettuce, cabbage, onions, cucumber, and tomatoes is offered, as well as a choice of sauces like hot sauce, herb sauce, garlic sauce, or yogurt sauce. The filling is served in a thick flatbread that is usually toasted or warmed. A German variety of döner presentation is achieved by placing the döner meat and the add-ons on a lahmacun and then rolling the ingredients inside the dough into a tube that is eaten out of a wrapping of usually aluminum foil, sometimes called "Türkische Pizza". When plain dough is used instead of Lahmacun the rolled fast food is called "Dürüm Döner" or "Yufka Döner."

Tarkan Taşyumruk, president of the Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe (ATDID), provided information in 2010 that, every day, more than 400 tonnes of döner kebab meat is produced in Germany by around 350 firms. At the same ATDID fair, Taşyumruk stated that, "Annual sales in Germany amount to €2.5 billion. That shows we are one of the biggest fast-foods in Germany." In many cities throughout Germany, "Döner" is at least as popular as hamburgers or sausages, especially with young people.[41]

In the year 2011 there were over 16,000 places that sold Döner in Germany with yearly sales of €3.5 billion.[42]

Germany's large Turkish community is probably the biggest reason for the widespread sale of döner kebap sales there:[citation needed] from the late 1960s on, large numbers of Turks were invited to come to Germany as guest workers, to help fill the shortage of labour found during the Wirtschaftswunder, after World War II. Many of these Turkish workers eventually stayed in Germany, some opening small food shops and takeaways, which was an excellent option in terms of progressing from some of the more menial jobs that could have otherwise awaited them.

According to The Independent, Kadir Nurman (1933-2013) is largely credited with having invented the doner kebab.[