A trip to the kebab shop is a rite of passage for some, and an essential for most of us after a night on the shandies.
Sorry in advance, as you might start to rethink your order after one kebab shop employee has revealed which item he avoids.
We get through a staggering 1.3 million kebabs a day in the UK (own up, how many are yours?) from nearly 20,000 shops.
Advert
One kebab shop owner - who wished to remain anonymous - told Fabulous that they wouldn't eat the food combinations which many kebab fans adore.
They said: “The idea of putting chips or rice in a kebab is disgusting for me but it’s what our customers want, so we have to go along with it.
"In fact one of our most common requests is for more chips. You’d never find that in Turkey – there it’s just meat, salad and sauce.”
It seems that many of us stray far from the traditional kebabs as they were intended to be served.
Advert
It's bad news if you're a fan of a doner kebab though, as the shop worker advises against trusting it.
“Lots of restaurants buy ready-made meat. You have to use a new one every day and they come in different sizes – for example you’d use a much bigger one on Fridays and Saturdays which are easily the busiest days, as people come straight from the pub to us.
“We make ours by marinading the meat for 12 hours and then putting it in on the skewers by hand. The most experienced chefs like me can do it in 20 minutes – but the average time to make a big one is about 40 minutes.”
The quality of the sauces, bread and other accompaniments can vary wildly too.
Advert
He says: “I make my chilli sauce from scratch and it takes at least six hours to make the perfect one.
"But a lot of kebab houses just use chilli powder, tomato puree, garlic and water."
The quality of the bread might not always be the best either: "We get freshly baked bread every morning, while others use stuff that can keep for months in its packaging," he reveals.
Advert
"Sometimes it’s tempting to take the same shortcuts that other kebab houses do, but I can’t, I have too much pride in my craft.”
He also reveals he wouldn't eat it regularly: “I can’t eat them every day.”
“Because I’ll get fat. There’s a lot of fattening sauces and bread in with the salad.
"Instead I’ll have hummus or chicken soup. And if I do eat one, I make it specially for me as I like mine much spicier than the English can handle," he says.
Advert
If you're a fan of going into the kebab shop after a night out, remember to be friendly to the staff, as many people can be drunk and aggressive and make it an unpleasant experience.
“It pays to be nice because we will always put in a bit of extra meat or give polite customers some baklava for nothing.”
“We have people coming in and asking us to chop up the tomatoes in the salad smaller. Weirdly we can usually estimate the amount of meat we’ll need on any one day correctly so we rarely waste any of that.
"The thing we end up throwing away the most often at the end of the day is…those tomatoes!”
Topics: Food and Drink, Life, Life Hacks, UK News
Jen Thomas