How to eat a kebab without making a godawful mess – Advice from an Akihabara kebab merchant

Our otaku reporter loves kebabs and wants the food to end up in his mouth, not on his shirt and anime merch.

Like any proper otaku, our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa makes frequent trips to Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood for shopping runs and fan events. However, while his love for anime and video games nourishes his spirit, he’s yet to figure out how to make that passion nourish his body, and so while he’s in Akihabara he often hits up local kebab joint Aslan Kebab.

In addition to being tasty and filling, Aslan Kebab checks two more boxes it needs to qualify for S-rank otaku fuel: it’s quick and low-priced, letting Seiji spend the lion’s share of his time and money shopping for cool merch. He does have one complaint, though, which is that he can’t eat a kebab sandwich without making an awful mess.

▼ Sure, it looks pretty now, but it’s not going to stay that way for long.

Obviously, a kebab sandwich that’s packed with meat and veggies is a good thing, but the more stuff that’s inside the pita, the greater potential for it all to go spilling out as soon as Seiji bites through even a small section of the bread. The chance of a spill increases with each subsequent bite, and it’s only a matter of time until Seiji eventually drops some saucy contents onto his shirt.

So on his most recent visit, Seiji decided to ask the saleslady, Asias, to help him.

Sure, enough, she had a solution to Seiji’s problem, and it had been right there in front of him the whole time.

Aslan Kebab has a container with forks and chopsticks on its counter, and Seiji had always just assumed those were exclusively for people who ordered one of their non-sandwich rice plate dishes. Asias told him, though, that people can use them for their kebab sandwiches too.

Using a utensil means you don’t eat it like a sandwich, but more like one of those bread bowl soups where you eat everything that’s inside first, then finish with the pita.

Not only does this keep the meat and vegetables from spilling when you take a bite, it also provides the maximum amount of time for the sauce to seep into the bread, putting a moist, flavorful punctuation point at the end of the meal.

Of course, you don’t have to eat your kebab like this. If you’ve got the manual dexterity, eating it with your hands, like a sandwich, is a perfectly acceptable option. But if you’re worried about spilling food on yourself, or, even worse, the cool merch you just picked up in Japan’s otaku paradise, this is a way to keep everything nice and clean, and it’s how Seiji will be eating his kebabs from now on.

Restaurant information
Aslan Kebab / アスランケバブ
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Kanda Sakumacho 1-15
東京都千代田区神田佐久間町1-15
Open 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m.

Photos © SoraNews24
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