Magic Chicken, Ahmedabad: The Greatest Shawarma in the World
My love for anything meat is well-known to regular readers of this blog. From chicken momo whose juices drip out at the first bite, nihari slow-cooked to a tender state of matter causing the meat to slide right off the bone, to a lustful burra charred to perfection. There is hardly any version of meat that I do not savour, and I find Indian preparations in particular to be the closest to my heart. Interestingly, my exposure to meat is quite recent. I grew up in a vegetarian household, and till the age of 14, had only eaten meat once – fried chicken at a restaurant in Las Vegas as a small child (I was intrigued by the portrayal of it in American media and threw a tantrum to have it, which my parents obliged to after they were unable to calm me down). As I hit 10th grade and gained a bit of freedom, teenage rebellion hit me. I was always curious about the taste of meat, as it had been restricted from me my whole life, and very occasionally tried chicken and mutton burgers at a Burger King and McDonald’s close to my home – the equivalent of losing your virginity to an inconsiderate fuckboy who is infamous in the school campus for premature ejaculation and ghosting his hookups. To be fair, it was the only restaurant I was aware of that served non-vegetarian food in my predominantly vegetarian vicinity in Amdavad. This was long before my days of extensive research before embarking on grand food expeditions, and the fast-food chains could provide some plausible deniability if I was spotted there by an acquaintance, something teenage me was irrationally paranoid of. Over mediocre whoppers and decent chicken nuggets, my appreciation for meat grew, and I desired to expand my palate to better food.
That is when I was introduced to Magic Chicken by my best friend, Poham. This small, unassuming roadside haunt in Amdavad’s Juhapura serves a limited menu – Chicken Shawarma, American Broasted Chicken, Shavai, and Al Faham – a huge contrast to traditional street food in Amdavad, which is a largely Tawa-based meat culture with each stall serving dozens of options in every meat imaginable. Places serving Arabic delicacies are quite rare, and I speculate whatever rise there is in the number of joints serving an Al Faham or Shavai (common at several food parks such as the one opposite Karnavati Club) to be a phenomenon that can be credited to the popularity of Magic Chicken. Eight years ago, my first introduction to the world of elite non-vegetarian food was through their Chicken Shawarma and Al-Faham, an incident that I retain vivid memories of to this date.
The chicken was slowly grilled over a vertical broiler, finely chopped up and added to a fresh, soft Pita bread, followed by a generous lather of creamy, garlicky Toum and an addition of lettuce and chopped green chillies, then rolled up and served with a salad of chopped carrots and green chilli soaked in vinegar. A bite of the Shawarma transported me to heaven – the juicy, slightly charred chicken wonderfully blending with the thick Toum that overflows out of your mouth with the first bite – the occasional vinegar from the salad and spice from the chillies adding much heterogeneity to the classic roll. I have never* set foot on the Arabian peninsula, and may never get the opportunity to in my lifetime, but I can confidently (and perhaps incorrectly, but I don’t care) boast that this little mishmash of ingredients can rival the very best that the Saudis or Emiratis have to offer.
Their other three offerings are grilled in a rotisserie, and chopped up to be served by the quarter; the Al Faham being prepared in a spicy marinade of cumin and chilli, the Shavai being relatively milder, and the American Broasted being served with a side of French Fries, in true Yank fashion. Regardless of what you order, you can expect to be served extremely tender meat, with even the traditionally “harder” cuts breaking at a feather’s touch, alongside a coating of spice that wonderfully covers the crispy skin. Out of the three, I recommend the spicier Al-Faham, but honestly, their grilled delicacies aren’t as big an outlier as their rolls are, and do leave room for improvement – I particularly felt that the spices did not seep into the meat much, leaving a slightly bland taste in your mouth.
Juhapura has its origins in a locality first developed to house slum-dwellers displaced by the 1973 Sabarmati floods. Over the past two decades, it has grown into one of India’s largest Muslim ghettos, its population estimated to be anywhere between 3 and 5 lakhs, a largely self-sustaining economy that receives little to no help from the state government. Juhapura emerged as a new home for Muslims who fled communal violence in the riots of the 1990s and early 2000s, events that altered the shape of Amdavad permanently, as the city began to become segregated on communal lines, and has remained so ever since, with the ruling BJP effectively criminalising inter-religious property transfers by classifying vast swathes of the city as “Disturbed Areas” despite no communal clashes since decades. The residents of Juhapura continue to fight an uphill battle. They receive little to no assistance from the state despite a relatively central position in the city, not too far from the bustling corporate offices of Prahladnagar or the city’s APMC, and are forced to fend for themselves even when it comes to the basic amenities of health and education.
In a city that is often openly hostile towards their own eating habits and ways of life, Magic Chicken has firmly established itself as one of the best non-vegetarian food chains in the city, and is perhaps one of the few local meat restaurants that has entered the collective cultural imagination of the average, slightly upwardly mobile Hindu Amdavadi. While food habits in Amdavad continue to be collectively policed by the state and Hindu society alike, anecdotally, I feel like the number of places that serve non-vegetarian food, particularly those that are targeted towards the upper middle class, have only increased multifold in the city in the past few years, even in localities that have traditionally been almost exclusively vegetarian, a phenomenon that I presume is the result of expanded skilled migration to the city from various states and cultures, creating a demand for meat that cuts across religious affiliations. The rise of food delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy also mean that food joints in Muslim ghettos such as Juhapura or various parts of Old Amdavad can also be accessible to foodies who live far away. Magic Chicken, which serves the more well-known Shawarma compared to Gujarati tawa places or bakeries, was a tailor-fit for these conditions, and has almost become a staple of meatsick employees working in corporate parks in the close-by Prahladnagar and Ambli areas. No other Muslim or local non-veg eatery in the city has enjoyed the fame that Magic has, not even the neighbouring Rajdarbar (which perhaps nobody outside Juhapura knows about). Thanks to their sky-rocketing popularity, they have opened multiple branches with expanded seating areas and menus in various parts of the city, ranging from the upper middle-class gated society of Applewoods, to the traditionally Muslim localities of the Old City. Given the circumstances they operate in and the memories that I associate with this place, there is perhaps any other restaurant in the whole world whose rise I have been so invested in and happy for. And as a recent visit to the area during Ramzan confirms, this is still the GREATEST SHAWARMA IN THE WORLD BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Recommendations:
Chicken Shawarma (9.75/10), Al Faham (8.5/10), Shavai (8/10), American Broasted (8/10)
Location:
Ground Floor, Regency Park Plaza, opp. Amber tower, Arshad Park, Juhapura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380055