For 30 years Sudan was a dictatorship that looked towards richer neighbours for help and sponsorship, principally Libya and Syria.
From a Libyan point of view it meant mainly oil, but from the Syrian side it has seemingly meant the food. There are Syrian restaurants everywhere.
We were staying at the Khartoum Plaza Hotel, a centrally locates affair that had a Syrian restaurant next door, Syrian Castle.
On the UK I’m a kebab fiend, Turkish doner kebab is not just drunk food to me! Syrian Castle looked like a classic kebab to me, although here, as in much of he planet it’s referred to as shawarma.
This place was so good we ate here 3 times, learning that “chicken machine” was a whole chicken, that 1/2lb of Shawarma is very big, and that Syrians know to do chips.
I was also a fan of their take on my classic kebab. The shawarma Syrian style comes wrapped in bread. Not the pits style, but wrap style and includes all the vegetables, and is huge.
Source is plated and consists of Arab style yoghurt, and hot sauce. I found it far superior to the chilli sauce we get from the Turks on the UK, although no burger sauce was a shame. Washing it down with a non-alcoholic beet wasn’t ideal, but you gotta roll with the punches!
If you’re staying at the Khartoum Place Hotel in Sudan the Syrian Castle Restaurant gets a big thumbs up from the street food guy.
Street food Khartoum baby!
