“You’ve never had a kebab!” Mark exclaimed to me on our first date. “They’re perfect when you’re pissed up.” I had come to rely on the Englishmen I met to expose me to different aspects of native London life, and their advice had led me to hole-in-the-wall taverns, back-alley street markets, and obscure record stores. Until now: Despite Mark’s urging, the sight of a kebab shop made my appetite disappear.

I had certainly seen enough to be sold on their popularity. On Northend Road, the street where I lived in West Kensington, there were three kebab shops within a ten-minute walking radius, including H&H Mangal, a Turkish one right below my flat.

I admitted to Mark that I was curious, but I didn’t know what to expect. I had seen the big cone-shaped slabs of sweating lamb and chicken spinning in storefront windows. The rotating meat didn’t appeal to me, and neither did the men who shaved off the thin slices that fell into a metal tray. They smiled and winked as I walked by, mouthing words I did not wish to decipher through the window. Mark shook his head in mock disdain at my lack of bravery.

Little did we both know the chicken-kebab connoisseur I would become.

My friend Katie and I shuffled our hungry selves into H&H Mangal one evening after work. We entered tentatively, eyeing the raw meat displayed below the glass counter—sprigs of parsley separated the pink, fleshy chicken from several other unidentifiable meats. The two men at the counter waited expectantly.

“Chicken kebab,” Katie finally said, softly and with the lilt of a question.

“Sure,” the taller man grinned at me. Another man appeared from the back room and told us to sit down while he brought us some chai. Two tiny glasses in the shape of curvy women were placed in front of us. The men watched us, the only people in the place, as we took our first sips of tea. Bitter, but good. We smiled. They smiled back.

“From America, are you?” We nodded. “We love to have American girls try our food,” the manager said. We sipped our tea while the men continued to stare and smile at us.

“Salad? Garlic sauce? Hot sauce?” We nodded to everything.

The man handed me the food. We paid the four quid and left. The plastic bag felt warm as I carried it outside and then upstairs. Back in our flat, we unrolled our food and set it down in the space between our beds. After cutting the large kebab in half, we each took a bite. It was not as exotic as I had hoped or feared. It was a wrap with grilled chicken and salad, but there was also a strong garlicky, spicy taste. The bread was warm and soft; the hot sauce cleared my sinuses.

From then on, we were regulars. At two quid each, a chicken kebab was a cheap and healthy meal. A whole kebab would have been too much, and believe me, we don’t eat like birds. Half of one, spread out on white paper on our bedroom floor, was often on my mind as I stepped off the Tube in West Kensington. I even wanted to try a new Turkish dish, fully intending to enter H&H Mangal and say, “Patlican salata” (grilled eggplant, peppers, yogurt, and tomatoes) or “lahmacun” (Turkish pizza), but whenever I walked in, one of the workers grabbed a skewer of raw chicken and set it on the charcoal grill. I was urged to sit down and drink chai.

Katie and I received so many take-out menus from H&H that we often joked about wallpapering our bedroom walls with the pink-and-gray descriptions of Turkish dishes. After two months of eating their food, we still couldn’t refuse the menus handed to us with such warm smiles every time we picked up an order. We stuffed the menus under our beds, worrying that if we threw them out, they would be seen in the transparent plastic garbage bags we placed on the curb on our way to work each morning. We didn’t want anything to hinder access to our favorite London dinner.

THE USUAL
The workers started asking questions. If I was alone, they would pry: “Where is your friend? Why didn’t she want to come in with you?” If we were together, they would ask, “Are you two going out tonight? Do you have boyfriends? Do you miss America?” We enjoyed the attention. The kebab made us feel special simply because we were from America.

We began calling the taller, lighter kebab man “the good-looking one” because although he wasn’t traditionally good-looking, he was at least more attractive than the other workers. He had lighter skin, with softer eyebrows and lashes. The good-looking one started winking at me while I drank my tea. I admit it: I looked over at him while he grilled my chicken. I felt sorry for him as he sighed over the other dishes he had to prepare, sitting on a rolling stool as the smoke from the grill blew into his face. He was a graceful cook, though. He slid back and forth on his stool, inching into tight spots to reach for lettuce and tomato slices. He turned over the skewers with his bare hands, impervious to the heat. He let the flames fly much higher than anyone else did, smiling at the brightness, catching my eye through the fire.

I went into the kebab shop one night coughing, and croaked out my order of chicken kebab. “You have a cold?” the good-looking one asked. “I’m a doctor. I’ll check you out.” It sounded as if he had just learned this cheesy line and was anxious to try it out on someone. On another night, it was: “You look cold. I’ll warm you up.” Those kinds of lines were made for men with slicked-back hair and toothy smiles; they sounded strange coming from his soft mouth.

LOSING H&H
After a horrible night of thwarted attempts at courting Englishmen in a Richmond pub, Katie and I sought solace in a snack of pita bread and hummus. We headed into the kebab shop uncharacteristically late. H&H Mangal looked different at night: The counters seemed dull and cracked, the raw-meat display was down to a few lamb kebabs, and the workers looked happier than usual to see us. At that moment, I knew we shouldn’t have come. Flirting during the early evening was innocent enough, when these men still had hours of work ahead of them. But now that they were nearing closing time, I sensed desperation in the way they leapt to attention. There was nothing we could do now.

The shorter, rounder worker greeted us, while the good-looking one simply leered at me. “We should all go out sometime,” the rounder one said. “You and me”—indicating Katie and himself—“and him and her,” pointing at the good-looking one and me. Katie and I looked at each other and then down at our feet.

I knew we wouldn’t actually go out on a date with these men, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, or stop eating chicken kebabs. Even with all their innuendos, I had never thought I would see them from the waist down. We didn’t even know their names, or if they were married. The language barrier wasn’t a problem during chit-chat in the shop, but I couldn’t imagine a whole evening with the good-looking one, cringing as he spouted cheesy lines at me. I couldn’t even imagine the two of them out of their bright yellow T-shirts, or how they would look standing next to us, two tall American women.

“We’ll all go out to dinner, out of the shop. How about Wednesday night?” “Sure,” we mumbled. They turned away smiling and moved near the grill to get us some hummus out of a big container. While they were turned away, Katie left for our flat, saying she was desperate to use the bathroom. When the rounder one saw that Katie was gone, he became angry, and when I explained, he shouted, “There is a bathroom here she can use!” For a moment, I stopped seeing him as the comically round and sweet kebab man, and began to look at him as a controlling husband, ordering his wife around. The good-looking one handed me the food, refusing my pound-fifty, telling me to drop by tomorrow if we still wanted to go out.

Katie and I had a decision to make: give up chicken kebabs or deal with disappointed kebab men. We compromised. We started frequenting the kebab shop, Best Mangal, a block away. It was more impersonal there, which is what we were hoping for. This place had a bigger, always packed restaurant in the back, with no space to sit and drink chai, if any had been offered.

We went back to H&H a few times, and always waved when we passed by. At first, the good-looking one wouldn’t glance at me, and only the manager or one of the other workers would fill our order or wave back through the glass. The last time I walked past the shop before I left for the States, the good-looking one smiled and waved. He didn’t know I was leaving, but I hoped that smile meant reconciliation. Katie and I didn’t eat as many kebabs from the other place. They tasted the same, but we realized that it was always more about the kebab men than the kebabs.