Sharp flavors at Mashawi Grill in Redondo Beach [RESTAURANT REVIEW]
Chicken and beef shawerma with tabbouleh and hummus sides. Photo
I was talking with a fluent Arabic speaker and mentioned a new place in North Redondo, the Mashawi Grill. I wondered out loud if Mashawi was the name of the family who owned the place. He informed me that it’s Arabic for a place where the specialty is roasted meat; an American restaurant of this type might be called something like Frank’s Grill. In other words, the name of the restaurant is “Grill Grill,” in English. It’s an emphatic statement of the specialty at this little strip mall café next to In-N-Out on Inglewood.
The restaurant is sparsely decorated and looks like a typical fast food joint, and the menu is short – chicken or beef shawerma or kebabs, lamb and kofta kebabs, rotisserie chicken, and falafel, with a few salads, soups, and sides. It might be another forgettable fast food joint save for two things – the spicing is Southern Turkish and slightly different from the more typical Palestinian and Lebanese offerings, and the ingredients are unusually high quality. The beef is grass-fed choice sirloin, which makes a noticeable difference.
On my first visit, my brother and I ordered combination plates – beef and lamb kebabs over brown rice and chicken and beef shawerma, both with a choice of sides. Since it was our first visit we didn’t know how huge the portions were, we also ordered falafels as a starter. We understood our error when we noticed other people’s dinners, but we didn’t care because the falafels were delicious, spicy and garlicky with a crisp exterior but almost creamy center.
When our dinners showed up, we spent a moment admiring them before diving in. It was a lot of food well arranged, and it smelled wonderful. The beef and lamb kebabs had different spicing, the lamb more strongly flavored with red pepper and cumin, the beef with more green herbs and a dash of black pepper and garlic. For sides we had ordered fries topped with Parmesan cheese, garlic, feta, and herbs and a tangy cucumber and yoghurt salad. I might not order that exact combination because the fries and rice were a carb-heavy combination, but the flavor of every element of the meal was first-rate.
I had decided to have tabbouleh and hummus as sides with my shawerma, which I noticed was made the traditional Arabic way by shaving the meat from a rotating vertical spit. (This isn’t always the case – I have been to places where the spit with the meat was on display, but the meat was cut from it and finished in a frying pan.) The traditional method results in very tender meat with a delicious chewy crust on the outside, and so it was with both the beef and chicken. The hummus was creamy and garlicky with a dusting of red sumac seasoning, the tabbouleh fresh and simple – tomato, parsley, garlic, scallion, and lemon dressing all in harmony.
It was just short of a perfect dinner, and only because Mashawi Grill has only fountain soft drinks and iced tea, not the hot tea, mint tea, or yogurt drink that would be both traditional and appropriate. I hope they might fix this, because their food deserves proper accompaniments. They do allow people to bring wine, so we opened a Pinot Noir and enjoyed it with our meal.
On the way out I picked up some chicken soup to go for my wife, who wasn’t feeling well that evening. The broth was tasty and it was full of big chunks of chicken, but it could have been improved with a bit more vegetables.
I returned to Mashawi Grill a few days later for lunch to try something that isn’t listed on their online menu – the rotisserie chicken. Knowing the portion size this time I had only a quarter-chicken, with sides of hummus and the fattoush salad. Fattoush isn’t on the usual side dish menu but is available for an extra fifty cents. It’s half a buck very well spent – the mix of toasted pita chips, radishes, green bell pepper, lettuce, cucumber, onion, and mint with a sharply flavored dressing of vinegar, lemon, sumac, and herbs was delightful. Those sharp flavors were a perfect contract with the chicken, which had crisp skin and moist interior but was very simply seasoned; this is rotisserie chicken for those who savor the concentrated essence of chicken rather than the spice rub on the skin. Along with the hummus it was balanced in both flavor and nutrition, and at just under $10 for the lunch with an iced tea, it was a bargain.
Though Mashawi Grill is in the far northern corner of Redondo in a commercial strip, it’s worth a special trip from anywhere in the Beach Cities. They do a few things very well and at a moderate price, and they deserve to succeed.
Mashawi Grill is at 3901 Inglewood Avenue in Redondo Beach. Open daily 11 a.m. – 9 p.m., parking lot, no alcohol served. Some outdoor seating. Website at mashawigrill.com, phone 310-644-2800.