Propaganda by Proletariateats

Here you are in Detroit, on a four-hour layover, with time enough in your flight schedule to flee the gastronomic chicanery of Wayne County Airport and find yourself something truly delicious to eat.  Today, you get one culinary crack at the Motor City, boy-o, so what’s it going to be?  Should you grab a Coney Island at Lafayette Coney Island, and feast upon the greatest hot dog in all Detroit:  an all-beef frank, nestled inside a steamed bun, festooned with yellow mustard and white onion, and slathered with Coney sauce (aka bean-free chili)?  Or should you hop over to Buddy’s for a slice of Detroit-style pizza at its very best:  thick, focaccia-like crust, baked in that distinctive, rectangular shape, with its sundry toppings smothered under a blanket of umami-rich tomato sauce in what Detroit locals call the “red top” style of pizza making.  

Both laudable options, to be sure.  Both brave and battle-tested stalwarts of the Detroit food scene for generations of devoted Motor City eaters.  But neither of these culinary classics are on today’s menu.  Today, you’re headed just outside Detroit’s city limits to dine on something far more sublime.  Today, you’ll be making a bee-line for Al-Ameer Restaurant, in nearby Dearborn Heights, for their magnificent shish tawook, Detroit’s signature sandwich, and your sure-fire ticket to gustatory bliss.

But how can a Lebanese sandwich embody the best of culinary Detroit, you might wonder?  How can a dish with origins in Turkish and Syrian gastronomy supplant workaday Midwestern favorites like hotdogs and pizza as the apotheosis of quintessential Motor City eating?  How can shish tawook be “more Detroit” than, say, a Coney Island dog?  One visit to Detroit, friend-o, and you’ll know why:  the city and its suburbs host the single largest Arab community outside the Middle East.  That’s over 300,00 Lebanese, Iraqi, and Yemeni émigrés spread across the greater Detroit area.  From this great Arab diaspora, then, comes the distillation of Middle Eastern culinary tradition and Arab gastronomic greatness yet unbested by any other North American city.

Enter Al-Ameer Restaurant, unofficial flagship of Arab-American cuisine in metropolitan Detroit.  Founded in 1989 by owners Khalil Ammar and Zaki Hashem, Al-Ameer has established itself as the place where Arab Americans jonesing for a hit of authentic, regional cuisine go to cop a quick fix.  Word of Al-Ameer’s greatness has spread far beyond Detroit’s Arab community, as well.  In 2016, the James Beard Foundation bestowed its prestigious America’s Classics award on the restaurant for Al-Ameer’s “timeless appeal” and all-around culinary excellence.

But you haven’t fled Wayne County Airport to gaze at a fucking wall-mounted Beard award, now have you?  You’ve come to Al-Ameer for its shish tawook sandwich:  cubes of boneless chicken marinated in—and I’m spit-balling here—yogurt, lemon juice, oregano, coriander, tomato paste, paprika, and garlic.  The chicken is then grilled over charcoal and wrapped in unleavened pita, slathered with toam (mayonnaise-like garlic sauce, emulsified sans eggs), and garnished with loads and loads of pickles.  This burrito-like structure is then finished on a sandwich press (note the grill marks, yo) and served with a side of banadura harrah, a kind of Lebanese salsa that acts as culinary ballast to the creamier notes inside the sandwich by offering the culinary counterweight of acidity and umami.

The result is nothing short of spectacular:  smoke and citrus, garlic and herb, all wrapped in the warm, savory embrace of grilled pita.  It’s the deliquescence of Lebanon’s most essential flavors, expressed in a handheld delivery device almost fulminant in its potency.  Now that you’ve tasted the gustatory wonder that is shish tawook, this you know.  Because like all intrepid eaters, your escape from the tyranny of bad airport food has led to this, the discovery of Al-Ameer and its exceptionally delicious shish tawook, metro Detroit’s best sandwich, and the ultimate in Arab street food.  Next time you visit Al-Ameer—because you will be back—count on seeing me there, too.  I’ll be the guy in the corner booth, licking baba ganoush from his fingers, and wiping toam from his chin.  

Contact:  christopher@proletariateats.com