Ugh, really?

As a Brit that’s moved to Australia let me say the kebab shops here are a revelation. The meat is nicely cooked, generally identifiable, and not swimming in grease. The bread is usually more like real Greek gyros bread, the salad fresh…

My memories of Kebabs in the UK is of very dubious slices of something coming off the elephant-leg at the back of the store, nothing you would ever consider when sober.

That's called shwarma and it's some of the most delicious meat known to man. Fun fact, tacos al pastor (possibly the best food of all time) is based on shwarma which Lebanese immigrants brought to Mexico:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_pastor

> That's called shwarma

What, the elephant leg? In the UK it's mostly Doner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab

And doner kebabs on sale in kebab shops in the UK are of very dubious origin. There have been a variety of scandals over the years about the origins of the meat.

About 20 years ago I read an article in the metro newspaper about the origins of the meat, a study having been done, which found that most kebab meat in the UK was not what it said it was. A significant proportion contained a mix of lamb, beef, pork and unknown meats. And at that time most of the allegedly 'halal' doners on the market contained pork.

Recently one of the UK's biggest suppliers of kebab meat was fined for selling doner meat that advertised 87% lamb, but was found to be using large quantities of fat and skin, with meat making up between 10 and 50% depending on which source you read. The 'meat' itself, where it was even from sheep was largely neck trim and mutton trim, and they were using goat as well without labelling it - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy736xme2vvo

Maybe you found some good places in east London that were actually making their shawarma on-site. But the standard of a generic 'kebab' in the UK has always been known to be awful.

Yeah, that's shwarma and there's zero elephant in it, nor is it a leg.

It’s really not. It’s doner kebab. Which most of them say on the menu and/or on the front of the shop.

Of course it’s not a literal elephant leg, but it is highly-processed mystery meat.

Visit the Levant and see real traditionally prepared shwarma. It is distinct cuts of meat put one by one onto a skewer. The meat is identifiable as actual muscle tissue of an animal.

Döner kebab in much of Europe is meat of dubious origin that has been industrially processed into a homogenized mass.

You can continue to eat and enjoy that if you want, but to criticize the "elephant leg" moniker and claim it is "just shwarma" doesn't suggest you have much experience with this cuisine, just as your remark elsewhere about "criminal bankers" in a Nordic country (lol) doesn't suggest much experience with the world in general.

"Elephant leg" is something only someone who's ignorant would call it.

> essentially a very large hot dog

Just like most German food!

Are you neuroatypical in a way that makes it hard for you to grasp humorous coinages and why people find enjoyment in them? "Elephant's leg" is a bog-standard one. Calling people who use it "ignorant" raises more questions about you than it successfully casts aspersions on them.

I don't find insulting another ethnicity's cuisine "humorous" at all. I find it to be typical of many Brits though. Tone deaf and crass culture.

They aren't insulting another ethnicity's cuisine, they are criticizing the quality of the meat that an eatery serves when it ostensibly is serving that cuisine. Notice here how a parallel thread here is all about how to find better-quality kebab than elephant's leg, so people obviously want the ethnicity's cuisine. (And as someone from the European continent, I have heard "elephant's leg" locally, it is not just a Brit thing.)

Nevermind that across Europe, the workers hired to run elephant-leg döner joints for absentee owners are from the Indian Subcontinent. It is not even their own ethnicity's cuisine, it's just the work they could get.

Again, your failure to understand these basic facts and propensity to misinterpreting your interlocutors is baffling.

As the sibling poster said, this isn't insulting another ethnicity's cuisine, it's insulting the quality of the product on offer in much of the UK.

I'd invite you to do a comparison. Here is a picture of a 'real' doner kebab or shwarma style kebab, raw - https://www.jidlonacestach.cz/data/obrazky/2026/01/pripraven...

Notice the recognisable layers of meat and fat, the cap of fat to melt in and keep it all moist.

Now here is what you're more likely to get in most generic UK high-street kebab shops - https://www.kirkskebabs.co.uk/raw-kebab-meat/

Notice the homogenous, pink-slime sorta texture going on? And take a look at those ingredients...

Now, if you're going to places serving the former, cool! That's probably some tasty eating. But the latter is why kebab shops in the UK are held in such low regard.

[delayed]

Kebab shops are the very bottom of the market for the most part.

If you want quality Turkish kebabs which are nicely cooked, generally identifiable and not swimming in grease you go to a Turkish grill restaurant.

I don't know how long you've been away but they're everywhere here now with not an elephant leg in sight. They'll even serve you a nice salad and Bulgar wheat.

It's disingenuous to pretend that you can't get decent food in the UK if that's what you are looking for.

About five years, I don’t believe for a second the market has changed that much across the country in that time.

Yes, you can get good Turkish food in a lot of places, and good Turkish food is delicious.

But the post I was responding to called out kebabs shops in particular as excellent and I wouldn’t want people thinking they can get ‘good’ food in the average kebab place.

Don’t get me wrong, it hits the spot after a skinful…

> It's disingenuous to pretend that you can't get decent food in the UK if that's what you are looking for.

Just as well I said nothing of the sort then eh?

> Just as well I said nothing of the sort then eh?

I think you did.

I think you've presented criminal behaviour as if it's not an aberration.

You've ignored that there are good kebab shops and bad. That good high street kebab shops are common and sell more than just low quality donnas, including shish with fresh salad.

I never want to eat a donna kebab, so I don't order it.

> I think you did.

Cool.

I'll be waiting here for you to quote and link exactly where I did this -

"It's disingenuous to pretend that you can't get decent food in the UK if that's what you are looking for"

And until then ignoring anything else you have to say.

> But the post I was responding to called out kebab shops in particular as excellent and I wouldn’t want people thinking they can get ‘good’ food in the average high-street kebab place.

You can in fact get excellent food at high-street kebab shops. That's my point. When I go to the UK it's literally what I survive on because the alternative (gellied eels anyone?) is completely inedible. You can also get haloumi from most of the good ones, which you can't in most places in the US.

It’s not shwarma at most of them mate, it’s highly processed doner, and the reason most of us would only touch them after 15 pints is we know what’s in it, or rather we know that we don’t know what’s in it. They’re extremely high fat and high salt, and there’s a multi-decade history of the manufacturers being busted for shenanigans.

Jellied eels? I don’t think most British people have ever eaten those except maybe on a dare.

I’m going to be charitable and assume you’ve only ever been to a small part of the East End of London, where you can get jellied eels (not the case in much of the country) and where there is likely a diverse enough community that actual decent shwarma exists.

Because if you’re eating doner kebabs regularly, from whatever vendor you come across in the UK, all I can say is you might want to check your heart health.

I mean most foods in the UK are bad for your health. Ham egg and chips (which I actually like) is hardly salt free. There's literally chips on or in everything. I've been all over the UK but tend to stay in East London precisely because it has the food I like.

I lived in Britain for more than a decade and the thing I missed the most from the continent was good, German/Turkish style kebabs than the sorry excuse with a soggy pita they sell in UK.

Did you ever spend time in East London? Absolutely top notch kebabs.

I mostly lived in East London

Are they really excellent? Kebab shops elsewhere in Europe are often associated with shady dealings. For example, in Finland a family will run one for a while for immigration fraud, then hand it on to another immigrant family for rinse and repeat. Naturally, they serve the lowest-quality food they can get away with. In Poland many are owned by Gulf Arab investors who hire Bangladeshi laborers to run them with zero concern for food quality.

Modern döner-kebab meat is rarely the quality shaowarma of a century ago. It is highly processed and basically a big hot dog.

Yes, they are really excellent.

> Kebab shops elsewhere in Europe are often associated with shady dealings.

No they are not, but there's a lot of racist propaganda that says they are!

The press coverage and statements by police and tax officials are there for you to read. To get you started, here's one [0] from Finland's public broadcaster that is hardly a bastion of "racist propaganda".

[0] https://yle.fi/a/74-20191372

I mean that absolutely reads as racist propaganda!

> "All types of misconduct are clearly more common in foreign-owned companies,"

Spare me, anywhere with bankers hanging out is going to be an endless sea of far more serious crime.

None of this has anything to do with food quality anyway, which was my point.

The quote was from Finland tax authority. Are you saying they are racist?

> anywhere with bankers hanging out is going to be an endless sea of far more serious crime.

In Finland? Examples?

> The quote was from Finland tax authority. Are you saying they are racist?

Yeah.

Hope you get stabbed later today.

So you get to enjoy the cuktural enrichment you jihadist advocate for.

Kebab stores, local entrepreneurs unwilling to hire a local and pay EUR 1500, private universities, slumlords. That's how immigration and visa frauds operate in Poland, yes.

Are you saying a hot dog flame kissed and scraped off with a knife and dumped into a pita with some yogurt/garlic/mayo/what have you sauce would not be delicious? Come on. People outside the US act all high and proud about the hot dog but literally every meat eating culture has some other scrap meat dish, sometimes its the whole anus rather than minced and put in a casing for you. Waste of the animal to throw out fine meat if prepared well.

Cultures may have traditional offal-based dishes, and indeed they can be delicious, but the meat is not highly processed, because that is something that came about only with modern industry. Just compare a photo of a hot dog or döner-roll mystery meat to those traditional dishes.

Not much different than mincemeat kebab actually.

I don't mind a kebab, but Germany has much better kebabs than the UK.