Mac Shawarma opens in East Meadow
The mixed shawarma comes with pork, chicken and beef wrapped in lavash bread at Mac Shawarma in East Meadow. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
Don't step into Mac Shawarma looking for mac and cheese — you'll probably be disappointed. But if you want authentic spit-roasted shawarma (and Chinese taro balls), you are in luck. Based in an old Chinese takeout joint, this new restaurant may be the first on Long Island to specialize in shawarma wraps from the country of Georgia.
It's owned by Leo Liu, a Beijing native who is working with his wife's cousin Mamuka Nozadze, of Tbilisi, Georgia. The two make an interesting team. Liu greets the customers and answers questions about Georgian food and the small menu. The restaurant does not serve hummus or falafel, for example — although there is Chinese dessert.
Mamuka Nozadze, left, and Leo Liu at Mac Shawarma in East Meadow. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
After you've selected your meat — beef, chicken, pork or mixed — Liu walks into the backroom and sets his knife over one of the three rotating spits. After shaving off some meat onto a large lavash flatbread, Nozadze finishes it with lettuce, thin Japanese cucumbers and the house spicy cream sauce before throwing it on the grill.
If you get the large (suggested), you'll be greeted with a sizable puck of dry roasted meats. The mixed shawarma ($14.99) offers a taste of all three, but the chicken is definitely the juiciest of the bunch. Liu said he prepares his shawarma in the authentic Georgian style, marinating the mounds of meat for 48 hours in a dry mixture of powdered spices — no oil, no sauce. He's been visiting Georgia, which lies at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, for well over a decade through his other business, which works with models and talent out of Beijing and Tbilisi. You can see that flare for entertainment in the small dining room/takeout area, which has a TV playing “America's Got Talent.”
On a recent afternoon, all the food was made fresh to order, especially the crinkle cut fries ($3.99), which came straight out of the fryer and were hot to the touch. Even more explosive was the taroto ($5.99), sugary fried dough balls of purple taro with a glutinous center. When you bite into these Chinese delights you think, “This could only happen in New York.”
Mac Shawarma, 473 Bellmore Ave., East Meadow, 516-519-1132. Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 11 p.m. Sunday.
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
