Chicken Shawarma at Ankara Picnic

This is the place. You can't miss it.

The big mass of chicken that has been on my mind for so long.

Made with love and care.

See the helpful little plastic baggy?

Yummy!

Even more yummy!

(Sorry. Not my pix. Images from the web of the actual place itself. Too hungry and in a rush to shoot my own that day.)

I went to Itaewon this saturday just passed. I've had this image of shawarma in my mind for weeks, if not months now. Every time I went to Itaewon I never had the opportunity to try the shawarma at Ankara Picnic for one reason or another. Today, I went there specifically to do so, as well some shopping afterwards.

For those of you who do not know what shawarma is, it is a Middle Eastern food consisting of roast chicken (or lamb, goat, etc.) carved from a large rotating mass and wrapped in a flat bread with a yogurt based garlic dressing along with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and (in this case) pickles. Most shawarma in Korea is also known as kebab instead of the proper name of shawarma. Kebabs are actually cube cuts of meat cooked and served on a skewer most of the time. But, the Koreanization of the food has shawarma being called kebabs here. Something to keep in mind if you get confused and/or are looking for shawarma. Just remember it's called kebab here.

Ankara Picnic is a tiny place not much bigger than a few phone booths, but the place is always packed; not even standing room only most of the time. There's always a line up. At least you know everything is fresh under these conditions. The chef carves the meat from the spit carefully selecting only those portions at only the right state of doness. Each shawarma is wrapped with care and then folded into a wax paper wrap with a small plastic bag added to the bottom to stop it from becoming an unmanageable mess halfway into eating it. You can see the care taken in the making of the thing.

The shawarma at this place was excellent; juicy, flavorful, smokey, and just plain awesome. No one ingredient overpowering any of the others; the mixture was superb. An authentic taste for sure. There was none of the Koreanization of the food so evident with most ethnic foods here (well, maybe with the exception of the pickles but they did not detract from the taste at all). The shawarma was so good I pigged out on two of them. Next time I'm in Itaewon again, I'll eat there for sure.

Ironically, Ankara Picnic is also one of the top five shawarma places in Korea as recommended by Dan of Seoul Eats. I only found out about this after the fact when I was searching for some pix to go along with my post. I lucked out!

Highly Recommended.

Name: Ankara Picnic

Cost: W4000

Location: Itaewon Subway Station, just at the top of the stairs of exit #3.

Teacher's Day With SMKBBSL

HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY TO ALL THE TEACHERS IN THE WORLD!

It was a blast coming to school today! I didn't want to come in the first place, but, because my friends are performing, I came just to see them.

The students from the afternoon session came to join us too and there were plenty of performances by the students. There was the choir group

And there were some who was beatboxing, danced, sang and there were even two bands; one Malay and the other Chinese.







And there was my favorite, the drama my class made up called 'The New Kid'. It was a title I just made up when I did the script. I did it as fast as possible for the next day. But later, they used a new script made by someone else using the original one by me. It was much longer and more Malaysian like as the language is more 'Manglish' as I call it. Both malay and english.






Haha! I guess I'm a little too english :p





OK, I guess you must be wondering what's the story like so, I'll just give you the basic idea.





So the story starts with a new kid named Azmir(our class moniter) that enters the class. He was doing homework when the gangsters of the class approached him and disapproved of him doing homework. So, they took him under their wing and taught him 'how to live'.





A week later, Neville, one of the gangsters starts dancing and moonwalking to the song 'Billy Jean' by Michael Jackson, RIP. And then, the whole group starts dancing to Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance'. SOO COOL!





Then, the teacher comes in, tells them to stop but they won't listen. It was at that time when the discipline teacher comes in and they all got in trouble. Meanwhile, the teacher called their parents.





At home, Azmir comes home and got one heck of a bollocking by his mother(Wen Peng, she's the director) telling him how his father left them and how hard she has to work and yadi yadi ya....


Azmir then storms out of the house after being punished by his mother. While he was out, his mother was unconcious because of asthma.





And it so happened that Azmir's teacher came to visit, saw his mom, revived her, called Azmir and then he rushes back home. It was soo damn dramatic; they had sad background music when they had reunited and there was touching speeches like Azmir saying he's sorry and his mom saying that he's forgiven and stuff like that.





The next day, Azmir was doing his homework again in school and his new friends persuaded him to dance again. He bangs the table saying that they should be learning and stuff and you get the deal; teacher feels touched and all's well that ends well.





THE END





I guess its a pretty good drama, I really enjoyed watching it and I applause!

Oh yeah! I was also a hired papparazi photographer taking pictures of a few specified people by request. I'd take pictures of really handsome guys or pretty girls for a certain someone who will kill me if I ever told a soul about their identity. So don't bother asking me, I won't budge.

Sometimes, I'd shout just to get that person's attention. And if there's no way I could get a good shot of them, I'd even go up to them personally and tell them that I want their picture for a certain reason. No prob.

Oh! And if you catch me taking pictures of you, I'm not a stalker; I'm a hired stalker. Take it as a compliment, it means someone likes you :D

So if there's a special someone you'd want a picture of, contact me. I'm available ^.~

Random Readup #8

Whew! What a week! A lot of things and happenings are going around in my school SMKBBSL. First of all, our school has this new 'outdoor classroom' where there's gonna be tables and chairs along with a white board at the assembly hall.

Apparently, this new classroom is meant for students who don't wanna study. But, what's the point of creating a classroom for those who don't wanna learn? Its also meant as a form of punishment where you'll be seen by everybody as a humiliation.

In my opinion, I think studying in a classroom like that sounds like a fresh change! Sure, you'll be recognised by everybody, but, when you see someone you know, you could just say hi and stuff and its not like they're intruding or anything, there are no walls!

Oh! And because Teacher's Day is coming soon, my classmates wanted to do a performance on that day. They wanted to do a drama about bad kids and stuff and I was asked to make the script.

I'm telling you ah, these 'gangsters' in the play especially cut their hair bald so that they'll look mean and tough. But, so far, people just keep laughing at them. Their hair is cut like the NS style like cousin Aaron. His head feels like a tennis ball. A wet, oily, tennis ball :S

Even the history teacher called them 'The Botak Gang' lolz!

Even now, my life has been active for the past few weeks. My friend Roann and I need to lose weight, so, we both agreed to meet up every Wednesday and Fridays at the Club to play badminton and go swimming. So far, we've been keeping up to our schedules and we did lose a few pounds.

Sometimes, on Satudays, I follow my mom to the gym as well and I ran for 6km! I couldn't believe I could do it either! I just did it, and I didn't feel any pain whatsoever.

Ah! I've been getting so many stuff to do involving writing; the scripts, letter writing, e-mails, homework and so much more!

Plus, judgement day(mid term exam) is coming soon. Oh boy!

Have a great week!