The kebab. The holy trinity of protein, veggie and carbs. The go-to for anyone who is feening a feed that won’t damage your body and/or subtract ten minutes from your life. The team at Critic was shook to realise that no Dunedin kebab review exists, and are here to right that wrong.

Each establishment has been assessed on the kebab’s length, girth, and height, as well as ratios of meat (or falafel, for the vegetarians) to salad.

Sila

Sila’s kebabs were the first victims of the night, likely has a biased write-up. Everyone in the office was starving. Of course, no one dared touch them before our rigorous sizing and taste testing.

Unfortunately we were underwhelmed by the first falafel sampling of the night. While the majority of the wrap was palatable, the falafel was dry (not as dry as the icebreaker joke your lecturer cracks in the first lecture) and fairly unpleasant to eat.  

The combo meat kebab was a definite improvement, though. It nailed the proportions of tangy sauce to serving of meat. The meat was weirdly stringy, but the serving size was decent.

Overall Sila hit like your grades if you keep watching TikToks in the library instead of studying: overwhelmingly average.

 

Length: 28cm

Girth: 20cm

Height: 5cm

Meat to salad ratio: 3.5/5 rotisserie meats

 

Falafel ($13.50): 5/10

Combo ($15.50): 7.5/10

 

Trojan

Much like both the famous horse and condom, Trojan held a surprise inside that was, well, still something, but not quite as was hoped.

Trojan’s falafel kebab was a plain offering. Acceptable. Upon further inspection we would be disappointed to see that the composition was off – sauce seemed to pool at the bottom – but this did not seem to affect the flavour, which was great, just not 1am-in-the-Octy great. 

As if Turkish cuisine has something to say about vegetarians, Trojan’s combo kebab was infinitely better. It was hard to find any criticisms. A good amount of sauce was coupled with a generous helping of meat. Former Critic Editor Charlie O’Mannin – who, unemployed, now relies on Critic handouts to eat – praised the flavour profile and a distinct satisfying stomach feel.

Length: 23cm

Girth: 19cm

Height: 5cm

Meat to salad ratio: 4.5/5 rotisserie meats.

 

Falafel ($12.50): 6.5/10

Combo ($14.50): 9/10

 

Anatolia

If you are looking for the perfect balance of quality of feed to price of kebab, then Anatolia is the place to go, if you can be fucked walking all the way to Princes Street.

The falafel itself was solid,  and each piece had a casing that appeared to keep the insides moist-er than most other falafel we tried. Critic Editor Sinead noted that it gave “big expensive kebab vibes”, and had a near perfect salad-to-sauce ratio.

Moving onto the combo meat kebab, Critic illustrators Asia and Saskia said that it “felt like the flavours were friends, gooey and all merging together”. Just because they’re friends doesn’t mean it all works out, as News Editor Erin chimed in with an in-depth analysis on the many aspects of this kebab. The sauce was nice, but relatively thin, and the overall composition seemed off. There was a bit too much onion and not enough tabbouleh, with also a clumping of oregano at the bottom. The salad was decent though, and that was enough to raise it to an overall 6/10 rating.

 

Length: 21cm

Girth: 22cm

Height: 5cm

Meat to salad ratio: 4/5 rotisserie meats.

 

Falafel ($12.50): 8.5/10

Combo ($12.50): 6/10

 

Dost

Sometimes you just have a godawful kebab, and Dost certainly delivered on that front.

A placenta/10 rating for the falafel was our first impression, with Saskia remarking that it tasted like Pepe Lopez tequila. You be the judge of whether that’s a bad thing. However, staff writer Sophia experienced a completely different flavour profile, noting that it tasted like butt and crunchy peanut butter.

The combo kebab was only a very slight improvement, but that isn’t saying much. Sure, there wasn’t a placenta-esque look to this one, but the excessive amount of cabbage and clumpy carrot overpowered the miniscule serving of peppery meat. That may be fine for a flat meal (meat is expensive), but not for a $13 kebab.

The only potential redeemer for this kebab was the generous quantity of sauce, but even that lacked flavour. Disappointment after disappointment.

 

Length: 24cm

Girth: 20cm

Height: 4cm

Meat to salad ratio: 1/5 rotisserie meats.

 

Falafel  ($13): 2/10

Combo ($13): 3/10

 

Yilmaz

Yilmaz was furthest north of the seven joints we tried, and in the perfect location for anyone sticking to a flat party instead of hitting town.

The falafel – the quality of which, by this stage, seemed to be an indicator for how a location would fare overall – was well done, if not slightly overtextured. The wrap as a whole was soft and soaked in enough sauce to be flavourful without being soggy.

Yilmaz’ combo kebab proves that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing. The flavours were absolutely on point, but the textures of the different meats and vegetables was somehow more noticiable than the kebabs from other joints. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was distracting. Overall, a very solid kebab.

 

Length: 26cm

Girth: 20cm

Height: 4.5cm

Meat to salad ratio: 4/5 rotisserie meats.

 

Falafel ($13.90): 7.5/10

Combo ($14.90): 7.5/10

 

Paasha

Even the most uncultured fresher would know that a kebab and a pita are two different dishes. While the ingredients are the same, the compositions are nothing alike. Apparently that didn’t get through to the crew at Paasha, who, despite us ordering two kebabs, served us two extremely square pitas.

This didn’t stop them from making an impression though. Their falafel offering was a solid middle-of-the-pack, but their hummus was god damn exquisite.

Paasha’s meaty offering “tasted good” according to Sophia. It better – they were the most expensive meal of the night. While Critic can’t give you a recommendation on Paasha’s kebabs, if you don’t mind a lack of good looks, their pitas will suffice.

 

Length: A lie

Girth: A lie

Height: A lie

Meat to salad ratio: 3/5 rotisserie meats.

 

Falafel ($15): 6/10

Combo ($15): 7.5/10

 

Nesli

While Nesli’s length was top tier for the kebabs we tried, the girth of their kebabs were the lowest of all fourteen we tried. We all know that it is girth that matters most in matters such as these. We’ll forgive them but only because they were the cheapest kebabs on the list.

Their falafel was immediately slammed for possibly being raw. We were genuinely unable to tell.  The only redeeming feature of this shitshow of a kebab was the orgasmic way the kebab unwrapped, steam and all. Incredible wrapping job aside, Nesli may have been aware of their shortcomings as they overloaded their wrap with sauce. Unfortunately, not even that could save them.

The combo kebab was bad for a completely different reason. It tasted much better than its falafel counterpart, but the message it sent is sure to put anyone down in the dumps. According to Asia and Saskia, this kebab was “very comforting, but like a warm hug from someone you shouldn’t be hugging”. That was followed up by multiple remarks about toxic exes reaching out after they’re done with their current fuckbuddy. This is definitely the kebab equivalent of a rebound one-night-stand shortly after being dumped, pleasant enough in the moment, awful when you wake up in the morning and realise what you did.

 

Length: 26cm

Girth: 17cm

Height: 4cm

Meat to salad ratio: 3/5 rotisserie meats

 

Falafel  ($10): 2/10

Combo  ($11.50): 4/10

 

Results

Winner: Trojan

Runner up: Yilmaz

Loser: Dost

 

With data assistant Andy Randell.