Vegan kebaps are a big thing in Berlin…read more
These come in two designs.
While some establishments serve both, it is not uncommon to have a kebap place to have one version but not the other.
The two versions are:
1) Serve a kebap made of seitan
Often there will be a sign in front of the restaurant specifying both vegan and seitan.
2) Serve a non-meat kebap adding vast amounts of grilled vegetables to the sandwich.
Here the code word is Gemuse as in Gemuse Kebaps.
Gemuse means vegetables.
Seitan or vegetables, you can't go wrong either way.
* * *
Gemuse Kebap and Friends is in the second school.
No Seitan appears on their menu.
For the record, no beef appears on their menu either.
Your choices are chicken in various forms, falafel, grilled halloumi cheese, and simple vegetables straight up.
Their product is outstanding.
I had a halloumi cheese kebap (with a ton of vegetables).
My wife had an all gemuse kebap - vegetables being the name of the game.
* * *
Both sandwiches were outstanding.
The vegetables involved were tomatoes, onions and insanely good peppers.
(The North Sea coast grows some of the best sweet red peppers on the planet.
Most of those peppers come from the Dutch side.)
There were sauces on the sandwich, but basically what was carrying both versions was the vegetables being copious and seriously seriously good.
For what it is worth, grilled halloumi cheese is bland comfort food.
The cheese picks up some of the taste of the grill.
But mostly the cheese just adds heft and protein.
Heft and protein are good things.
* * *
A lot of kebap places are real hole in the wall places.
The interiors are modest, occasionally bordering on the grungy.
You sit outside on folding chairs.
Gemuse Kebap and Friends has better real estate.
It has two "shop slots" rather than one - not a rarity but always welcome.
You can sit indoors in a setting not unlike a good fast food place.
And if you absolutely positively have to sit outdoors rather than indoors,
There are tables on the sidewalk where you can eat too.
* * *
Overall, a first rate place.
Is this a place for destination dining with your most important business client?
In that case, you want some place fancier.
But if you and a bunch of friends want to drink beer and eat well while goofing around,
I recommend Gemuse Kebap and Friends enthusiastically.