Kebabs come in many forms. Wrapped in a puffed up naan, a warm pitta, a teardrop shaped samoon studded with black and white sesame seeds, and then stuffed with grilled meat or crisp, fried halloumi cheese. With salad. All the salad, no onion. Chilli sauce. Yoghurt sauce. Hummus. Extra pickled chillies, please. The combinations are endless.
Manchester is, of course, fantastically awash with them. But when seeking out the best, most-debated ‘babs in town, three names tend to come up again and again. And handily, they’re not far off being next door to each other.
The Rusholme Chippy, Kobeda Place and Jaffa, all on Wilmslow Road’s stately Curry Mile, are hotly contested to provide the best kebabs in the city. There are other contenders. Panicos and Turkish Delight in Chorlton. Abdul’s in Fallowfield. And then the likes of Cafe Instanbul on Bridge Street and the similarly entitled Istanbul on Bury New Road.
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Despite its chain proliferation, German Doner Kebab is not to be sniffed at, Bab in the Northern Quarter and, of course, the Levenshulme Bakery are all excellent choices too, with the latter, at £4.50, turning out a bafflingly good bab for your buck.
But with the sun going down, and iftar - the breaking of the fast during Ramadan - approaching last week, Rusholme seemed the only place to be. My dining partner was convinced of the winner even before parking.
Late night news shifts in the late 90s were frequently punctuated by a kebab at the Rusholme Chippy on the way back to his flat in Moss Side. One of the few places that would still be open at 1am on a weeknight, a seat in the window would provide ample entertainment. The place is an institution.
The chilli sauce was the stuff of legend, served separately in a styrofoam tray, and to be treated with respect. Today, the chippy is twice the size of what it was back then.
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It’s been serving up kebabs since 1977, and while it’s had a refurb in recent years, the furnace-like tandoor oven at the back remains, billowing out smoke, breads slapped to its inside wall and then dragged out with a hook barely a minute later.
The lamb kobeda is £7.50 on a naan, and when it arrives, it spans the table, and would feed two. The prospect of the double, at £13.50, conjures anxious meat sweats. There’s no plate, it’s served on chip paper, after being layered up with salad, chilli sauce and yoghurt.
It’s excellent, the kebab and the bread, blistered from the oven, are bravely salty, the chilli sauce still as fearsome as ever. The salad is fresh, constantly replenished from the kitchen at the back, with red cabbage, lettuce, olives, pickled chillies.
The tray of chips is chip shop-style, lashed with salt and vinegar - it’s a chippy after all. But this is a kebab shop foremost, and this kebab, easily a foot long and retrieved from hanging vertically on lengthy skewers in the fridge at the back, before being plunged into the fiery maw of hell, is going to set the bar perilously high.
Onward. About five doors down, past the shisha bars with their busy terraces and a man swinging a fiery burner full of incense, is Kobeda Place. One succinct and powerful online review simply reads ‘literally the best kebab I have ever had’.
This place is less gussied up than the chippy. It’s plain inside, a little scruffy in places, but every booth but one is taken now that the sun has set, so we quickly sit. Signage is basic, and even the coldbox at the back - an old Coca-Cola drinks fridge - looks like the kobedas hanging in it might rather be chilling next door in the chippy’s shiny purpose built appliance.
Appearances can be wildly misleading. A tray of yoghurt and chilli sauce arrives first, then a pot of mint tea. The chilli sauce is hot and sharp, there’s vinegar in there, and it’s slightly sweet, like the tea.
When the kebab arrives, another kobeda (also £7.50), its as plain as the surroundings, a thick club of lamb on a freshly baked naan, stretched long like a slipper. It looks nothing in the least bit special.
But it is. Quite sensational. Slick with green oil from whichever secret spices are ground up within - I ask what they are, but the chef has made the kobedas for the day and gone - it’s soft and giving, complex with spice and perhaps ‘literally the best kebab I have ever had’.
To be fair, I’m struggling to recall a better one. Arguably, the bread is very, very slightly less airy than the chippy’s, but no worse for it. It’s shades of grey here. Should they ever decide to join forces, then that would be a fine day indeed.
The place is friendly and packed with families and extended families, sharing huge plates of the popular quabily pallow rice, with the bones still in the chunks of lamb. Some mean looking lamb chops pass our booth too, an order for next time. There will be a next time, and a time after that.
Finally, to Jaffa, on the corner across the street. Though it’s frequently cited among the best kebabs in Manchester, it’s a different proposition, Mediterranean rather than Afghani, and shawarma rather than kobeda.
After sitting on the benches by the kitchen, a generous plate of chicken and lamb shawarma arrives in under 60 seconds, with a warm flatbread folded up next to it.
To compare to the two previous would be like comparing apples to oranges. Here we have mezzes, hummus, spiced potatoes, crisp falafels too, a special of lamb with rice. Not quite the same proposition, but nonetheless excellent. It's a fine, fine kebab.
But the simplicity of the kobeda at Kobeda Place has to take it, over the heritage of stately Rusholme Chippy. Though there's really not a great deal in it.
To conduct this in one night is perhaps not advisable. I shan’t be trying it again. But it served an admirable purpose in itself - to highlight the richness we have on our doorstep. And the sight of packed restaurants all up and down the strip on this holiest of Islamic holidays was a joy to see.
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