Big Knife is a Turkish Shawarma restaurant, it is the most popular joint for shawarma in Nairobi, is it the best for that tho? We’ll find out in this post. Other Turkish restaurants in Nairobi include Palace Instanbul in Two Rivers Mall and Turken in CBD.
Locations
Big Knife has more locations in Nairobi, for this review was the Muindi Mbigu Street in Nairobi CBD located right at the footbridge to The University of Nairobi, which happens to be the intersection with Monrovia Street too.
All locations of Big Knife as of 2024 Include:
- CBD
- Hurlingham
- The Imaara Mall (Mombasa Rd)
- South C
- Pumwani
Menu & Pricing
This is considered a cheap eat-out restaurant, cheaper even than your conventional fast food restaurant chains say KFC, here menu items are as cheap as KSh 250 for a shawarma roll.
I tried spending KSh 1,000 here and it was too much food that I packed some for take-out, it is that budget-friendly, below is the current Menu of Big Knife
Food Review
Shawarma, or Doner, as it is known in Turkish is the main item at Big Knife. Shawarma is just a Middle Eastern name and since 99.8% of Turks are Muslims, it means almost all their food is Halal, thus this is a Halal restaurant.
Fries
Fries here are surprisingly above average, almost good, they are crispy on the outside and seasoned, and cuts are regular so they are evenly cooked
The seasoning however seems to be for color as they don’t taste seasoned, upon close inspection I can tell they are coated in paprika, this is regular paprika…opting for smoked paprika would make them even better
The outsides are almost perfect but I can’t say the same for the insides are a little bit mushy, not so bad but could be better.
I think home fries will always be better than most Nairobi restaurant fries. Still, these are better fries than what you can get at Big Square or Between Two Buns, I think they are more like Java House fries which are slightly average.
But since fries are not the star of the show here, they are a mere side, let’s see how good the shawarma actually is
Chicken Shawarma
A shawarma is essentially a sandwich roll in the simplest terms, however, the bread used is a kind of flat bread called pita bread, it resembles chapati a little, but looks more like a tortilla wrap, also looks like naan bread but lighter and thinner.
Traditionally pita bread is made from flour, yeast, salt, and water, yes since it has yeast it means the bread rises, but the steam escapes after cooking and it flattens out like a chapati.
So inside the pita bread is shredded chicken, vegetables, and sauces. The vegetable options here are lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, all layered vertically so with each bite of your shawarma you taste a different combo, which makes it satisfying for the next bite, it doesn’t all feel monotonous.
The chicken proportion to other ingredients is so good, that chicken is the predominant ingredient, thus the name chicken shawarma. Unlike Java House which names a sandwich as ” chicken wrap” only to stuff more lettuce than chicken in the said wrap, SMH, anyway this is why it’s common sense not to order food from a cafe, just get coffee and maybe pastries.
The bread is soft and okay but it’s not charred up as much as I would like it, it is so subtle but still okay, there however seems to be no sauces applied between the pita bread and the inner ingredients, a creamy garlic sauce would make everything better.
However, you have sauces on the table to top up as you would wish, They use Peptang sauces which I wouldn’t say they’re the top of the line, but they are okay for a restaurant of this budget.
Beef Shawarma
So by default if you order shawarma it is chicken, beef shawarma is also an option but you have to specify that, well the chicken version is the global common type.
Tried them both Chicken is the better option, it is universally known that way but I had to find out myself. The beef is okay, tender, and not chewy at all but not as flavorful as the chicken one, so always get the chicken it also costs 100 KES less and is a better product.
Drinks
Drink options are decent from fizzy sodas, milkshakes, lemonades, dawa drinks, and fresh juices. Since I went for the combos, they come with soda as the drink choice, surprisingly they sell sodas here at a reasonable markup, just +25 KES over the retail price unlike some places like Chicken Inn where the price is double the rrp
Value for Money
Value is 5/5 here, I don’t think it can get any better in terms of pricing vs portion. size, just a single regular wrap is enough to fill you up for just KSh 250, and there are combos for 399 where you get everything including a drink and a side of chips, you can comfortably spend under KSh 500 here and get a fill.
Service
However, the service here is not the best according to many, personally, it wasn’t bad the waitresses were nice and attended to quickly, the only problem here is the wait time, it is so bad almost as bad as Java House.
I waited over 30 minutes for my order for instance, (and this wasn’t an isolated incident) it wasn’t even that busy since it was around noon, the excuse was running out of bread, other aspects of service are okay-ish the wait time isn’t, which beats the purpose of a fast food style restaurant
