and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

Just like Tony Pierce, I too, have dreams of becoming a restauranter.. or at least a standanter - which is to say, one who owns a food stand/walk-in/fast-order-to-go sort of deal.

Only I don't live nearly as close to Mexico like Tony and I don't live among gazillions of hispanics like Tony and I'm not super excited about burritos like Tony.

I like burritos. I'm just not super excited.

A man once told me you should always be super excited about what you do and what you do should be super exciting and I never really believed him - I believed truly that life is a serious of heartbeat-like hills, valleys, and plateaus. I believe that contentment - those little plateaus in between the beats - is where one should try to reside for a better part of one's life. Happiness - the true super excitement of life - is a temporary climb up a big hill which, when one reaches the top, one realizes is a peak, a point, a jagged edge, and soon topples down the other side.. It's fleeting. In the subsequent fall one gathers momentum, of course, which carries one past the plateau of happiness into a pit of not-so-happiness (I won't go so far as to say despair but, sure, it's possible). This pit is an easy enough climb back up to the plateau if you've got the right attitude. Not nearly the climb that happiness was. So that's my take.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't choose to do things that super excite you. In life there are two things you do: those which you are not allowed to choose, and those that you have the ability to choose. So when you have the choice you might as well choose super excitement.

And super excitement to me is Lebanese Shish-Taouk. Shish-Taouk is a simple pita-wrap dealio which is filled with:

a bit of chopped cabbage
pink pickled turnip chunks
tomatos
onions
garlic sauce
  and/or tahini
    and/or humus
      and/or hotsauce
pieces of shaved roasted chicken

In some shops the pita, once wrapped, is lightly grilled over and open flame or warmed in a microwave. I prefer the grill.

But the best part about the Shish-Taouk (often shortened to Shish, which is often spoken SHUSH!.) is watching the lebanese smartly shave the chicken bits off of large stacks of chicken breast that have been piled on a vertical spit which is rotating around heating elements. If you like your chicken more charred than normal you can simple ask and they will hold the rotating spit so that a section of chicken is blackened up just for you.

The first time I ever had a Shish was at Fattouch in Montreal at 3673 St-Laurent. Fattouch (pronounced fatoosh but from then on pronounced fat-touch by me) is a hole-in-the-wall local joint which services a million drunks a night right in the heart of the St. Laurent downtown district. It's not the best Shish in town but it's cheap and, to me, will always be one of the originals.

Later on in my college career another shop almost directly across the street from Fattouch opened up: Sara's. Sara's has a few stores around the city but this was the only one I have been to. Right next to the Angel's dance club, the staff is friendly and they manage to remember an ungodly number of faces. I went back 6 months after I graduated and was recognized. Their Shish, like every Shish, is certainly unique. They use a more lettuce-type concoction instead of cabbage and it tends to be larger and less tightly-wrapped than others. It's what I call the "salad shish", which of course has it's time and place, depending on your mood.

The Shish to end all Shish, though, is Boustan's located at the corner of Crescent and De Maisonneuve in the business downtown area. Despite Crescent being a pit of touristy sin (e.g. Hard Rock Cafe, etc) Boustan's is both local and excellent. The prices might be a little higher than others but it is well worth it. They sport an open-flame grill, the tightest packed Shish, the hottest hot sauce, and gobs and gobs of garlic sauce. It's simply amazing. Drink 10 beers and then eat their Shish and it's beyond anything you could ever imagine.

As you can see, Shish is to me as burritos appear to be to Tony. Shish is amazing for lunch, on the go, or for a late night post-drinking snack. It's flavourful. It's portable. It's compact. It's probably the only "wrap" food I appreciate. (I think this big "wrap" fad in fast-food joints is ridiculus).

Someday I would like to throw open the doors to my very own Shish establishment. Portland, ME, here I come. With large roasting spits of chicken and beef (the beef version of Shish is the Shwarma), Lebanese music over the speakers, and drunks all around, I would feed the city's hungry from noon till night. The white-bread Americans of this town might take awhile to understand the true experience but I believe it would only be a matter of time before the Portland chapter of the Shish Nation was born.

It's that goddamn good.

The only problem is that I'm not Lebanese. Whoops.