What is a Munchy Box?

June 11, 2008 3:12 AM

What is a Munchy Box? In the west of Scotland, in the towns and villages surrounding Glasgow, there is a delicacy available in some of the more discerning fast-food outlets. It’s called the Munchy Box (sometimes just Munch Box) and it’s a sight to behold.
posted by armoured-ant (91 comments total)

"Doner" meat?

"Crappy" salad?

The food industry in Scotland needs a PR person.....
posted by HuronBob at 3:16 AM on June 11, 2008

That looked really appetising... if you happen to be a mangy stray dog who lives behind a skip in some Glaswegian alleyway.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:20 AM on June 11, 2008

Then call me a mangy stray dog who lives behind a skip in some Glaswegian alleyway.
posted by chrismear at 3:22 AM on June 11, 2008

I now have a reason to visit Scotland.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:22 AM on June 11, 2008

Just wrong.

I particularly liked "glasgow salad".
posted by YouRebelScum at 3:34 AM on June 11, 2008

Amazing. I will never tire of discussing the regional variations of British takeaways.
posted by jimbaud at 3:34 AM on June 11, 2008

Good German Döner kebab, Indian Naan bread, and Scottish chips. All in one box.

These are the delicious spoils of globalisation.
posted by three blind mice at 3:39 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

The food industry in Scotland

Quoted for amusement.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 3:40 AM on June 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

"Jock Monsieur" is superb.
posted by motty at 3:46 AM on June 11, 2008

Hailing from a place with its own sometimes-bizarre fast-food universe, I appreciate this.
posted by loiseau at 3:50 AM on June 11, 2008

This is food that is meant to be eaten at 2 AM while blind, stinking drunk. The meat, potatoes, flour and grease will sit in your stomach, sop up the excess alcohol and allow you to stagger home. If you are complaining about the aesthetics, flavor or nutrition, and you are sober, you are missing the bloody point.

Three cheers for drunkard food.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:54 AM on June 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Hell, I'd eat that without alcohol to soften the blow. Yum.
posted by maxwelton at 4:03 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

beautiful, all it needs is a battered Mars bar for dessert.
posted by twistedonion at 4:12 AM on June 11, 2008

We ordered one the last time I went back to Scotland to visit my family. Not having lived in Scotland for about 20 years, and consequently considering myself pretty well clued-up on good diet and nutrition, I still reverted back to my inner heart-disease-in-waiting persona, and gorged myself silly.

It really does taste as good as it looks.
posted by daveje at 4:17 AM on June 11, 2008

This is food that is meant to be eaten at 2 AM while blind, stinking drunk...

Ah, so it's the Scottish version of Krystal burger (or White Castle for the Yankees), that explains quite a bit.
posted by Pollomacho at 4:24 AM on June 11, 2008

p.s. I can't wait until the next time I'm in Scotland: I'm going to ask random women in the street if they have a 'munchy box' and see which one of them gives me a Glasgow Kiss.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:45 AM on June 11, 2008 [9 favorites]

It's like a garbage plate, only made more awesome.

Any scots out there want to start a lucrative business of putting those things on dry ice and fedexing them across the Atlantic? 'cause I'll be a loyal* customer.

*As in I'll order maybe three times a year, giving my arteries and colon ample time to clear between stomachgasms.
posted by bunnytricks at 4:50 AM on June 11, 2008

> Good German Döner kebab

German? Despite there being many Turks now resident in German, the "döner kebap" (literally, "turning meat") predates the migration by a long way and hails from their much warmer homeland...
posted by benzo8 at 5:00 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Crappy salad? Is it cole slaw or the bits of lettuce without green?
posted by brujita at 5:04 AM on June 11, 2008

Pizza place round the corner from where I used to live in Leeds would deliver a doner meat and chilli sauce pizza, one of the best pizzas I've ever had.

They'd also pick you up some fags and beer from the offie next door.

I miss that place
posted by fatfrank at 5:06 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I can feel my arteries clogging just from looking at the pictures.

Outstanding!!
posted by spirit72 at 5:15 AM on June 11, 2008

fatfrank, they would deliver junk food, beer and cigarettes to your door? Wow. You've gotta love Yorkshire.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:15 AM on June 11, 2008

*click*

"Hello, this is Munchy-Box. How Can I help you?"

"MEEEEE WAAANNNNNNTTTT PIIIILLLLE OOFFFFFF FOOOOOOOOOOOD!"

"Very well, sir, that will be to your cave in 30 minutes or less or we give you a free tick-comb!"

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDD!!!!!!"

"Thank you, have a nice day!"

*click*

"GRRRRRRRRRRRR. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:22 AM on June 11, 2008 [6 favorites]

German? Despite there being many Turks now resident in German, the "döner kebap" (literally, "turning meat") predates the migration by a long way and hails from their much warmer homeland...

And pasta comes from China, but that doesn't make it less Italian.

As I say to those who warn me that those dark skinned Muslims can never intregrate into European society, "It may be Turkish, Greek, or Arab in origin but today there is nothing more German than döner kebab."
posted by three blind mice at 5:22 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I worked in a chipper in the Irish seaside resort of Salthill back in the '70s for several summers, and could tell what region of Ireland - often down to the town - customers came from. Not by their accents, but by how and what they ordered. Dubliners referred to a large order of chips as a punnet, (some northsiders just asked for a laarge) northerners from Belfast usually wanted a "fish supper" meaning fish and chips, those from Derry wanted chips with gravy (so we gave them Galway's favorite curry chips and they went back to their campsite happy0. Galwegians also favored coleslaw on their chips.

Then some guy from England came in and asked for curry chips with coleslaw on top. I nearly had him arrested at first, but he persuaded me to try it. I've been hooked ever since. It must have got around pretty quickly, because now it's a Galway delicacy known as a 50/50.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 5:25 AM on June 11, 2008 [4 favorites]

Faint of butt has it exactly right. People who come in to have a sneer about this as being representative of Glasgow food are missing the point. It's late night food for drunken people. Yes, you might get some people who eat this for an evening meal but they tend to be the people who in other parts of the world would eat (insert local culinary disaster of choice here:___________) for dinner, have trouble going to the toilet and all the rest of the health problems associated with poor diet. For everyone else, it's just something you might pick up when yer pished and waiting on a taxi.

Anyway, most discerning Glaswegian fast food aficianados will eschew the munchy box for the much tastier and late-night calorific bliss that is the sarbeni. A local variant of a Turkish regional classic I believe. If only I could find a picture of one.

Crappy salad? Is it cole slaw or the bits of lettuce without green?

I think the author was just calling it 'crappy' because it has some redeeming features in that it is not saturated in fat. I have never heard it called 'crappy salad'. It is usually just shredded white cabbage/coleslaw with a hint of vinegar. It is very tasty in a drunken state too.

fatfrank, they would deliver junk food, beer and cigarettes to your door? Wow. You've gotta love Yorkshire.

They do this in parts of Glasgow and Lanarkshire too. I got in a taxi once and the driver told me that his previous hire had been a woman that had phoned a taxi to her house. When he arrived, she ran out in her nightdress and gave the driver her ATM card and a scrap of paper detailing her pin number and a request for £50 from the ATM less the cost of the taxi and 40 fags. So, basically the woman paid £25 and entrusted her ATM card and pin to a stranger in return for not having to leave the house to buy 40 coffin nails. I can imagine this lady may have been the type to have scoffed a munchie box for dinner.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 5:25 AM on June 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

My old man grew up in depression Glasgow. They used to take a potato to school for lunch. It was meant to be boiled in a big pot in the canteen- problem was you had to wait for it meaning your precious football time was wasted, so most of the boys ate raw potato for lunch.

Can't have been good for them.
posted by mattoxic at 5:26 AM on June 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

chuckdarwin said: "fatfrank, they would deliver junk food, beer and cigarettes to your door? Wow. You've gotta love Yorkshire."

Any corner store or small grocery store here in Montreal will deliver whatever you want. (They only sell booze until 11pm though.)
posted by loiseau at 5:27 AM on June 11, 2008

I fail to see what's inherently German about it, save perhaps your personal experience. I have bought döners in London, Paris and Barcelona. Almost the only foodstuff available on Rambla de Raval is kebap. But I'd never consider it Spanish, so please explain, rather than merely reaffirming, why you believe it to be German...
posted by benzo8 at 5:27 AM on June 11, 2008

That's not too different to the 'AB special we can get in Adelaide. Australia.

It's chips covered with kebab meat and drowning in mayonnaise, and ketchup.

It's name derives from the fact that it looks something like an afterbirth.

I like the Scottish version though. It's like the Very Special AB Special.
posted by twirlypen at 5:29 AM on June 11, 2008

Doner/donair is definitely middle eastern. It's served in every falafel joint I've ever been to.
posted by loiseau at 5:32 AM on June 11, 2008

That second "unboxing" photo looked like 2girls1box.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:35 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

On the kebab/kebob/kebap controversy, I confess I converted to help running a doner kebab stall in Salthill/Galway in the 80s for a few years and feel proud of the many culinary creations I spawned. But if anyone is in London, head down to trendy Beauchamp Place in Knightgsbridge and find the Lebanese restaurant Maroush (which I didn't know was a chain until just now). They make an astoundingly good chicken kebab that's unlike anything else on the planet.

And please send me some
posted by Nick Verstayne at 5:36 AM on June 11, 2008

beautiful, all it needs is a battered Mars bar for dessert.

The sommelier suggests Buckfast Tonic Wine to accompany the main course, and a nice sweet Irn Bru with the dessert.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:38 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's no longer the case that Glaswegians eat like that.
Maybe this happens outside Glasgow these days, everyone knows all Glaswegians are Vegans now - sitting in tofu restaurants that used to be betting shops - endlessly discussing the ramifications of Post Modern cognitive space.
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:43 AM on June 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

(thrown in since we're on food today):

Fish and chips

In her monumental Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, published in 1997, the great Claudia Roden credits Portuguese Marranos - Jews who had been forced to hide their ethnicity due to persecution - for introducing fried fish to this country when they arrived as refugees in the sixteenth century. The soon-to-be US president Thomas Jefferson wrote about eating 'fried fish in the Jewish fashion' after a visit to Britain towards the end of the eighteenth century and the first Jewish cookbook, published here in 1846, included a recipe for it.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:45 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

bunnytricks beat me to it: That looks an awful lot like a Garbage Plate, made famous by Nick Tahou's
posted by meta_eli at 5:45 AM on June 11, 2008

Any corner store or small grocery store here in Montreal will deliver whatever you want. (They only sell booze until 11pm though.

loiseau, how do they know that people are of legal age to buy alcohol? Or do they not care?
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:47 AM on June 11, 2008

sitting in tofu restaurants that used to be betting shops

Thanks Sgt, I nearly choked on my Irn Bru latte* there.


Irn Bru replaces the milk.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 5:49 AM on June 11, 2008

List of every Doner Kabab shop in Berlin (long)

Doners are German in the same way that curries are British.
posted by dydecker at 5:52 AM on June 11, 2008

Almost the only foodstuff available on Rambla de Raval is kebap

And Spanish doners are on the Munchy Box level of putridness. Germans doner's are delish - and even exported to Turkey nowadays ;)
posted by dydecker at 5:55 AM on June 11, 2008

Boy, we British sure do eat crap.
posted by greenie2600 at 5:56 AM on June 11, 2008

Wow - this is the real-life version of SNL's Taco Town skit. (Hulu video, transcript ).

And both would be great names for drive-through brothels, should the ever become legal.
posted by bibliowench at 5:57 AM on June 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

chuckdarwin said: "Any corner store or small grocery store here in Montreal will deliver whatever you want. (They only sell booze until 11pm though.

loiseau, how do they know that people are of legal age to buy alcohol? Or do they not care?"

I've never done it but I think they just ask for ID at the door if there's a question... pretty easy. But drinking age here is 18 so it's probably pretty obvious when people aren't of age.
posted by loiseau at 6:02 AM on June 11, 2008

dydecker - I was going to respond to your first point until you made your second point... Given that you've neither: a) tried every doner in Germany, or b) tried every doner in Spain, and additionally, c) that you seem to think that the large number of doner shops in Berlin is somehow a state unique to that city, or at least its country, I shalln't bother.

I would suggest though, that if you were to do an on-the-street, statistically significant study europe-wide, chances are the results would not support your assertion.
posted by benzo8 at 6:03 AM on June 11, 2008

I like this comment:
"It took two days to eat. It’s not my first, though. A large one is unmanageable by one normal sober person, over no matter how many days. You need to have at least two of you and some cats and be prepared for it to be dinner, breakfast and maybe lunch."

... reminds me of the delights of left-over cold kebab for breakfast, nothing better for a hangover.

Not comments on the saltiness... odd, I remember my times in Scottish chippies asking for just a little bit of salt on my chips and still getting about half a pound.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:08 AM on June 11, 2008

Kebab/kebap/donner will always say "France" to me. I don't know about the rest of you hooligans, but that's where I got hooked.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:24 AM on June 11, 2008

The ad I got on the hulu "Taco Town" page was a Chili's ad - "Featuring the biggest strips of bacon you've ever seen!"

marketing | parody - talk about a thin line!
posted by yhbc at 6:26 AM on June 11, 2008

Glasgow remains the only place on Earth I have ever been offered a deep-fried frozen pizza. And none of your low-triglycerides polyunstaurated safflower oil deep-fried, either. Some sort of dark brown high viscosity liquid. It may have begun its life as beef tallow, but something horrible had happened to it since then. Due to my aversion to fish as an adolescent, I went for the pizza. (The fish would have been fried in the same manner anyway.)

Even as a zit-faced 15-year old whose frontal lobes were drowning in a sea of hormones, concvinced of my own invincibility and that frying was the only way food could be properly prepared, I knew after eating it that I had done something terribly, terribly wrong.
posted by el_lupino at 6:31 AM on June 11, 2008 [4 favorites]

twirlypen said: That's not too different to the 'AB special we can get in Adelaide. Australia.

It's chips covered with kebab meat and drowning in mayonnaise, and ketchup.

It's name derives from the fact that it looks something like an afterbirth.

Interesting. When I first heard the term 'AB' used to describe this dish I was told that it stood for the first two letters of... well, something not entirely unrelated to afterbirth but not the same. Mind you this was from a bunch of drunk St Marks' kids: the people both most likely to know and most likely to lie in order to be deliberately unpleasant.

Delicious, though.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:37 AM on June 11, 2008

Given that you've neither: a) tried every doner in Germany, or b) tried every doner in Spain, and additionally, etc etc

the funny thing is that I have tried almost every Doner shop in Barcelona, and I have tried about 30 doner shops in Berlin, and my statistical measuring tool, ie my gag reflex, tells me that the Germans know something that the Spanish (or the Moroccans really) do not: How to make an edible doner.
posted by dydecker at 6:53 AM on June 11, 2008

This article is a little outdated. The new culinary fad in Glasgow is the Tucksack, which is a mass of crumbled shortbread, offal and heroin, deep-fried
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:07 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

The food industry in Scotland needs a PR person.....

ground coarsely and deep-fried in whale blubber.
posted by trondant at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2008

This is food that is meant to be eaten at 2 AM while blind, stinking drunk. The meat, potatoes, flour and grease will sit in your stomach, sop up the excess alcohol and allow you to stagger home. If you are complaining about the aesthetics, flavor or nutrition, and you are sober, you are missing the bloody point.

Three cheers for drunkard food.

New Brunswick, NJ (home of Rutgers University) sells something like this, except it's mashed up between a sub roll (or hoadie or po'boy). They are sold from "grease trucks" which are trucks that don't actually move and are awesome.
posted by ShawnStruck at 7:26 AM on June 11, 2008

It looks like vomit.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2008

You know, I've never, ever seen anyone order one of these boxes - they're on the menu at most crappy take-aways, but folk tend to stick to one or another of the Munch Box items on its own, as nature intended. Even at 3am in the East End.

el_lupino wrote: Glasgow remains the only place on Earth I have ever been offered a deep-fried frozen pizza.

Pizza Crunch, it's called. I have one approximately every three years, which is how long it takes for the memory of how rank they are to fade.

Also, if you want a minimalist Munch Box rolled into one obscene battered dish: The 3lb Stonner.
posted by jack_mo at 7:34 AM on June 11, 2008

chuckdarwin: they would deliver junk food, beer and cigarettes to your door? Wow. You've gotta love Yorkshire.

In Bradford they've delivered me to my door. I never thought I'd get away with it but I ordered enough food for free delivery in the shop, gave them the address and cadged a lift off the driver.
posted by vbfg at 7:37 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

50-something comments, and no decent jokes about the phrase "munchy-box"?

You people are slipping...
posted by tadellin at 7:43 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

That second "unboxing" photo looked like 2girls1box.

Damn, you have me crying at my desk with that one.
posted by a3matrix at 7:53 AM on June 11, 2008

50-something comments, and no decent jokes about the phrase "munchy-box"?

Too easy!
posted by rokusan at 7:54 AM on June 11, 2008

Wonder how much Vitamin D it's got.
posted by owhydididoit at 8:14 AM on June 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

New Brunswick, NJ (home of Rutgers University) sells something like this, except it's mashed up between a sub roll (or hoadie or po'boy). They are sold from "grease trucks" which are trucks that don't actually move and are awesome.

Ah the Fat sandwich, truly a drunken treat. By my 3rd year at Rutgers I was no longer able to digest these monsters and relegated myself to a single Fat Bitch (maybe it was a Fat Sam -- Whatever was a cheese steak with fries and chicken fingers is called) per year.
posted by smackwich at 8:20 AM on June 11, 2008

Almost as intimidating is the California Burrito. Native to San Diego, it's a mass of carne asada (grilled, marinated steak), fries, salsa and sour cream wrapped in a flour tortilla. It can be deep fried upon request. [Pic] Tackling one of these baddies is a mandatory right of passage for new residents.
posted by blockhead at 8:31 AM on June 11, 2008

I'm going to have to second Dydecker on the Germaness of doner kebabs. Both in quality and ubiquity, German doner shops dominate their European brethren. His point about Doner kebabs being German as curries are British is spot on.

Look on the bright side, at least in europe you guys can buy real doner kebab made from real lamb meat and not the giant spinning blocks of steakums we're forced to eat in the states.
posted by Telf at 8:41 AM on June 11, 2008

His point about Doner kebabs being German as curries are British is spot on.

Not sure why, but I'd always assumed the Doner was a Turkish invention. If true, then given the history and the numbers of Turkish gestarbeiters in Germany, it doesn't seem surprising to me that that would be where you'd be getting the good ones.

On preview, I see benzo8 makes the same point.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:03 AM on June 11, 2008

wow - that's quite impressive

in the morning you could follow it with a good ol' fry-up

among so many other talents the Scots are true culinary innovators, adventurers even! I still remember the slice of deep-fried pizza I got in Oban years ago - yes, deep fried, about half a pie big, folded around a sizzling batch of chips - I pretty much died & went to heaven (but only for a moment - I couldn't really stay aloft for very long with that much grease weighing me down)

mmmmm....
posted by jammy at 9:24 AM on June 11, 2008

Today, döner kebab is typically served as a kind of sandwich in a small pide (Turkish pita bread). The döner kebab with salad and sauce served in pita, which is predominant in Germany, was invented in Berlin Kreuzberg in 1971 from Wikipedia

Invented at Hasir, apparently in Kreuzberg.

Doner lover waxes lyrical about doners (with porny doner photos)
posted by dydecker at 9:28 AM on June 11, 2008

This turned into a great thread! Thanks for all the food history and context peops!
posted by serazin at 9:35 AM on June 11, 2008

I couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance. Words like "Chicken Tikka" and "Pokora" should never be displayed next to a picture of something so unappetizing. My mouth was watering involuntarily while my brain processed an image of what appeared to be an inside-out dog.
posted by lekvar at 9:40 AM on June 11, 2008

I never thought I'd see a munchy box on Metafilter.
posted by fire&wings at 9:43 AM on June 11, 2008

Mother of pearl, that's disgusting. Not too far removed from KFC's failure pile in a sadness bowl, though.
posted by brundlefly at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2008

Do they give you an angioplasty catheter with it? Cuz jeez.
posted by Mister_A at 10:09 AM on June 11, 2008

It looks like vomit.

See a doctor.
posted by contraption at 10:20 AM on June 11, 2008

dydecker: "Today, döner kebab is typically served as a kind of sandwich in a small pide (Turkish pita bread). The döner kebab with salad and sauce served in pita, which is predominant in Germany, was invented in Berlin Kreuzberg in 1971 from Wikipedia"

From exactly the same article: "The original form of today's döner kebab is Cağ kebab. The original form is grilled horizontally and the slices are cut thicker, after inserting a special L-shaped Oltu shish along the surface. In the 19th century, the modern form was invented in Bursa. This original dish, known as İskender kebap, is still served in many cities of Turkey."

So you're resting your case on a serving suggesting, created by a Turk while he was residing in Germany? All that Mehmet Aygün at Nasir did is change the serving method, which is exactly what the Scots again did here. So, either:

a) This is "Scotch Kebab", not a "German Kebab", by the same logic that you claim "döner kebabs" to be German. (Remember, döner kebap just means "rotating meat" - all spit roasted meat, either vertical, or horizontal turning, is "döner kebap"). Or,
b) They're all Turkish and merely being sold in a country that isn't Turkey doesn't change that...
posted by benzo8 at 10:42 AM on June 11, 2008

the delights of left-over cold kebab for breakfast

Semi-related, my wife just DOES NOT UNDERSTAND the joys of cold leftover pizza for breakfast. She rants about it, "You AND Chris are both freaks, that's just nasty and disgusting."

Chris is her ex-husband (and still a good friend). Both he and I just look at her like she's from another planet. Maybe it's a Man Thing (tm).
posted by mrbill at 10:42 AM on June 11, 2008

I hate you all for talking about German Doener Kebab. I discovered these ubiquitous Deutsch delicacies when I visited a couple of times in high school and one of the girls I stayed with took us on a tour of her favorite shops. I loved them, and knew when I got back to the states I'd live in a forever frustrated state of the non-doenered hunger.

Then, sometime later, I moved to LA, and figured "hey, in a city that big I must be able to find one somewhere!"

I've had all sorts of other delicious food here from all corners of the globe. And I've hit every kebab shop I can find.

But every kebab here is KRAPAP

One of these days I'm going to go to Germany just to get a fucking turkish street food sandwich.
posted by flaterik at 10:45 AM on June 11, 2008

How is a doner kebab different from Shawarma? It looks very much like the same thing....
posted by MythMaker at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2008

I am unsure how to articulate the exact nature of the difference, but it takes the form of deliciousness

Something about the meat... and sauce. And spices.

And bread.

It's like the Shawarma I can find in the US is a version recreated from a lossily compressed Doener.
posted by flaterik at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2008

bunnytricks beat me to it: That looks an awful lot like a Garbage Plate, made famous by Nick Tahou's

As a Rochester resident, I can confirm the wonder that is the Nick Tahou's Garbage Plate. I've even had them during the day and while sober, but I'm definitely in the minority as far as that goes. Sadly, due to a crime problem (even though it's across the street from the 911 center), Nick's closes early now. Mark's on Monroe Avenue is open 24 hours, though (avoid the Mark's on Lake Ave. unless you're bullet-resistant).
posted by tommasz at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2008

Mythmaker.. doner is much closer to a Greek gyros, while shawarma is looser slices of meat.

flaterik, no need to fly to Germany. Toronto's got you covered for all the Turkish street food (albeit served in a restaurant because the idiots on City Council have bizarre notions of what street food is allowed to be) you can handle.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:15 PM on June 11, 2008

No wonder Scotland is such a dominant global power.
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:35 PM on June 11, 2008

This is making me miss the Halifax donair, which I (wrongly, I know) think of as the quintessential donair because it's what I grew up with.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:57 PM on June 11, 2008

There is something missing from the otherwise tasty-looking garbage plate and munchy box, and that thing is gravy.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:11 PM on June 11, 2008

No wonder Scotland is such a dominant global power.

Been there, done that. Scotland was a global power when it was something to be proud of. Tobacco, sugar, slavery, whisky, the Enlightenment. Those times have passed. And what fate but decadence befalls the embers of a civilization that burned so bright? What can be more decadent than Munchy Boxes, deep fried pizza, cirrhosis and teenage pregnancy rates that defy modern social and medical science? We've had our day in the sun and we know it. We're revellling in the midden heap of the ruined castle, but, fuck me, we're having a good time doing it. Wha's like us? Gey few, an' they're aw deid.


BTW, I am partial to the odd munchy box
posted by Jakey at 3:29 PM on June 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

Anyway, most discerning Glaswegian fast food aficianados will eschew the munchy box for the much tastier and late-night calorific bliss that is the sarbeni. A local variant of a Turkish regional classic I believe. If only I could find a picture of one.

Oh, fuck aye, the Sarbeni - I had one of them, trashed, with my brother once, end of Sauchiehall Street. I nearly cried it was so good.

Anyway, they do say that all Scottish cuisine is fundamentally based on a dare - if I fry that, will you eat it?*


Anyway, true story, I'm from Edinburgh, which, unlike everywhere else in the UK, doesn't do salt and vinegar on chips. In Edinburgh, we have salt and sauce. When my Dad retires, we're going to rent Harleys and drive around East Central Scotland, plotting the Sauce Line on the map whereby chippy staff, unprompted, begin to offer stinking vinegar instead of the sweet tang of the broon saas. You better fucking believe there'll be a blog.

Anyway, that's not the story. So, I went to uni in Aberdeen, and one night after I staggered off the InterCity bus, legs bent out of shape and dehydrated beyond belief, I carried myself up to Belmont Street, centre of Aberdonian evening culture, such as it is, in search of sustenance. Having just got back from my hometown, I quite fancied a deep-fried pizza, so I wandered into a chip shop at the bottom of the street, waited my turn and asked for one.

"Och, nae min," cried the stout yeoman of the fish n' chippery, "I cannae gie ye that, that's unhealthy."


*beat*

"Have a pie instead".

I bought the pie. I still marvel at it, especially given this place was where the dreaded Aberdeen Death Burger was invented, which consisted of two frozen burgers with a slab of processed cheese thrust between them, which was then deepfried and slapped in a floury white bap. Usually with ketchup. Unhealthy indeed.

*Apologies to er, Billy Connolly I think, for nicking that gag
posted by Happy Dave at 4:39 PM on June 11, 2008

Ah, doner kebap. I fell in love with you that summer in Salzburg. The little stall was only 17 steps from the hotel. The little man who owned my shop knew my name by the second day. By the time I left two weeks later, I think he feared for my health, and my sanity.

Why haven't you emigrated to the States? Gyros are a cruel mockery.
posted by Eddie Mars at 4:53 PM on June 11, 2008

The little man who owned my shop knew my name by the second day

I don't know why my previous food reminiscing didn't bring this to mind, but I totally forgot about our favorite vendor.

Picture, if you will, a very swarthy man serving you delicious kebabs. Then imagine our amusement at him saying "Ahhhh, you're americans? I love boy george! Do you like boy george? He is the best!"

The fact that boy george isn't remotely American makes it all the better.

That guy also had the best doeners, so you can imagine how often we went there. He talked about Boy George every time if I recall correctly.
posted by flaterik at 5:14 PM on June 11, 2008

In Edinburgh, we have salt and sauce.

I remember, the first time I went to Edinburgh as an adult, wandering into a chippy at the end of pub crawl and being asked 'do you want sauce?' Not wanting to complicate thing I just said yes. I was surprised by what I got - I think I expected ketchup or something - but it was delicious. However not normally even liking brown sauce I've never repeated it sober.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:22 PM on June 11, 2008

Toronto's got you covered for all the Turkish street food...

As much as I love the "t-dot" we are unfortunately #2 on this count. Halifax's donairs are more awesome. And Hull gets top place for greasy shwarma after a night of under-age drinking.

Toronto has gotten a bit too upscale for anything like the "munchy box". Back when the Rochester ferry was running the local papers carried a few incredulous articles on the Garbage Plate which put it in the wrong light I fear. Too bad for Toronto.
posted by GuyZero at 5:54 PM on June 11, 2008

Yeah, that looks even worse than the deep fried pizza I had in Glasgow many years ago. Deep fried pizza, even when absolutely wankered, starts off amazing but goes wrong pretty quickly.
posted by TheDonF at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2008

MMm.

And now I know where the fuck "donair" comes from. And now I miss poutine.
posted by sciurus at 11:06 AM on July 10, 2008