Shawafel

Not my favorite kabob or falafel place on H Street NE. It is good for something late night after going out but the quality is not there. They are known for being quick and dirty so I guess that is fine for this establishment. I don’t expect it to be amazing like some of its other H Street counterparts.
Good — Late night.
Bad — Don’t take a date here.

Worst schawarma I’ve ever had in my life. Dry, hard steak that I thought better of eating since I wanted to keep my teeth. Perhaps cuz it was the end of night and I got the last pickins’ either way…

I have tried shawafel many manyy times and never complained about the variety of food I had there. I love both Falafel and Shawerma — both taste good at shawafel. Restaurant is clean, workers are nice and friendly. Thankful that the location is close to where I live :)

Tempted to give 2.5, but it was edible, the interior was clean, the cashier was nice, super fast casual place.
If there’s absolutely nothing else to eat, I would go ahead with this place. I compare this with Micho’s down the street (on 5^th), and I personally prefer Micho’s because the food was a bit more generous and food wasn’t cold.
I got the veggie platter and chicken shawarma, the two came out to ~$ 21. It was a weekday night around 8pm, and everything was quite cold. The chicken shawarma wasn’t hot enough, neither was the falafel or cauliflower in the veggie platter. Cauliflower was soggy and cold. Tabbouleh didn’t taste very fresh. The shawarma was like more like a skinny wrap.
Unfortunately, will not be returning.

I ordered delivery from here on a Friday night. I live less than a mile away, but when I received my food it was cold. All $ 40 of it. When I called up there to rectify it, the lady said she would remove the charge. They still charged me $ 7. I ordered the fried cauliflower– it was greasy and cold. The chicken shwarma wraps looked good, but again– cold. The only edible dish they sent were these falafel garbanzo bean balls. They were dry and they didn’t send sauce. I threw the food in the trash and ordered Chinese. This may be best eaten at the restaurant– fresh.

2 stars to you shawafel.
Let’s start with the food.
The sharwarma was cold
The chicken had a really off smell to it
The tabbouleh was at least 2 days old and soggy
The baba G had toooo much of a burnt taste to it
Plus side the hommos was good
The garlic was the best I’ve tasted in a while
I liked the falafel but my husband who is a Lebanese food expert said that the falafel was too burnt and dense soo.
Fries were okay
Okay and now to the awful service.
No one bothered to say hi or how can we help you, and then leaving the same thing happened no goodbyes or thankyou. And it wasn’t like they were busy ?? Actually the guy was too busy face timing Some family member
to even look up and say goodbye.
So no we won’t be back.

I was so excited to find a Lebanese place on H street, offering manaeesh which is my favorite Lebanese breakfast pizza. We ordered the arayess one with meat. I was disappointed as it wasn’t the real manaeesh bread, but simply pita bread. It was very oily too. I don’t know how they prepare the other manaeesh (zaatar and cheese) as they don’t appear to have the proper oven to do it… But I will go back to try them out of curiosity.
We also ordered the Lebanese tawook sandwich — which based on the description sounded refreshingly authentic (with garlic sauce, French fries, and coleslaw as served in Lebanon). Unfortunately the execution was such that it did not taste anything like the sandwich I had in Lebanon :(but overall, a good late-​night fast food option…

2.25 Stars
Unprecedentedly boring. but while the food at Shawafel is not the ghastliest food I’ve had, this isn’t much of a saving grace either. I think I’ve been walking by Shawafel for the better part of the last four years now and always wanted to stop in and try some of their chicken shawarma or lamb pita sandwiches but honestly that timetable could have easily been extended as there is nothing to really see her in this tiny bright florescent-​lit dining room.
There is very little pleasure and only a small affection recorded in the paper-​thin menu. The chicken shawarma is bland, unseasoned, anemic, and dry. The lamb pita also unseasoned, chewy, and lifeless. The entire idea of shawarma of any kind if to seal in all that juice and flavor of the meat and can sometime be absolutely heavenly. Shawafel misses that mark — and that is a shame because they have the right people, the right owner, and the right ingredients to give this food a much needed lift. Muncheez over in Georgetown does it right.

I rolled through here after a solid night of bar hopping to grab one of my favorite late night eats, falafel. Although it’s not scientific I believe falafel has been proven to be very effective at absorbing alcohol and hence has a sobering effect as well as satisfying my flavor requirements. It also had the added bonus of being less greasy than that late night jumbo slice if you’re looking to avoid feeling that next day guilt.
Let’s just say I had high expectations of this place, sadly I wasn’t too impressed. I’m used to custom building my falafel but here i was given a pre fab. The flavors and toppings just didn’t hit the spot like I expected. Maybe it was late or he just assumed I’d like his but it was only okay. The fries however were great and a large is perfect for two to split. I think I might possibly give this place another shot though to improve on my first impression. Customer service was fine and the price wasn’t too expensive.

This place is great. Food tastes good and it’s consistent… It’s my «go to» quick lunch spot on H street or if I need a grab and go dinner. You don’t leave feeling gross

Great place amazing food, authentic. Lived in the Middle East for 7 years and I can say this is the flavors I’ve been missing. Amazing shawarma sandwich, falafel sandwich and fries. Loved it

For a fast pace this is good and clean, falafel is better than average, only complaint is they didn’t warm the pita.

Needed a quick bite before a play started at Atlas Theatre. Shawafel is right across the street from the venue. My falafel sandwich (actually more of a wrap) was really tasty and quite flavorful. It really hit the spot. Barely waited at all before they called my name after I put my order in at the counter. Very nice price point too. Great place for a quick inexpensive bite.

Actually pretty delicious, but the price is a bit high — almost $ 13 (before a tip) for a wrap and the small (they call it «medium») fries. Really nice flavor and feels fresh, unlike other shawarma spots. Still, would be nice if they could offer a smaller french fry choice for less money. The medium is a lot of fries for just one person. Also, yeah, it’s hot inside, even with the ceiling fans, which does not make dining-​in very refreshing on an oppressive DC day.

I haven’t been to this place since it opened
I’m glad I came today
I’m taking away one star for the very small portion and the $ 11 veggie platter also on the falafel sandwich they crumble your falafel in the bread
Never had this before why wouldn’t you just leave the falafel whole like other places such as Amsterdam falafel

I was craving falafel and so we headed here on a rainy weekend. Overall, the food was quite good. The one downside was that there wasn’t as much meat as I would have expected.
Almost everything we tried was good with the exception of the htipiti. I would not recommend getting it. Additionally, last time I went I got the eponymous Shawafel sandwich. The falafel was good, but the carved shawarma was not.
Things that we did like included the falafel, the hummus, the kafta and the lamb kabob. My husband was a bigger fan of the shish taouk (chicken) than I was. I thought it was a bit dry. All in all, a good meal that we’d be happy to go back to.
They have a small amount of seating (~5 or 6 tables) and seem to do a good business in take-​out. We had to wait about 10 – 15 min. for our food which was a bit longer than I’d like, but nothing horrible.

I was so excited to try Shawafel and they let me down so hard. I wasn’t feeling 100% so I decided to order delivery, jokes on me because they have a $ 25 minimum delivery fee which at that moment sounded like a good idea. Their food is reasonably priced so I had to tack on quite a lot to make it to the minimum. By the time it was all said and done I was in the hole $ 35 for crappy middle eastern food.
I ordered the chicken shawarma which came wrapped in a regular wrap not even pita? It was alright but nothing amazing. It came with fries that were COVERED in spices. They were limp and just okay. Half way through the bag I found a big curly black hair in them, so that was the end of that. I made the meal a combo which came with a soda except my coke was sitting on warm food for an hour while being deviled so it wasn’t drinkable.
I also ordered the hummus which didn’t come with any pita or chips to eat it with. Not impressed. And some sort of cheese bread which was just plain digesting. Finally the side of rice which was $ 4 was literally plain rice I could have boiled myself.
I love middle eastern food but this place is just gross. I’ll pass next time.

Delicious, addictive food at an affordable price point? All of my favorite things! I got the meat shawerma which I highly recommend (tip — get it with both the garlic paste AND the tahini!). It was a wonderful medley of flavors & textures. well seasoned juicy meat, cripsy slivers of radishes & turnips, and tasty sauces that all came together in one perfect shawerma. The unexpected star of the meal was the fries and I’m not even usually a huge fan of fries. They were seasoned with zaatar, made fresh, and addictive when paired with the garlic toum.
All this for $ 10 — can’t beat it! I will definitely be back when I’m in the H Street area next time!

We actually were heading for a pizza dinner when we stumbled into this joint. Saw those wonderful baklavas on display and decided we were going Lebanese tonight. As a vegetarian, it should not be hard to find good options at a Mediterranean place — and this place was no different. Fairly standard fare, reasonable prices and order-​at-​counter affair.
Food, however, is a different story. My veggie plate of cauliflower, hummus, baba ganoushe, tabouli, falafel and pita was quite sub-​par. Falafel had a thick crust and appeared to have been fired for too long and my palate just did not enjoy it. The pita was very thin and dry — had to struggle with the thing as well. I have never had deep-​fried cauliflower so was looking forward to it but this too was heavily over-​fried, old, or both.
On the bright side, it seems like a fast place to get food at reasonable prices — we unfortunately had a dull outing. Needless to say, we did not try those baklavas after the meal. Maybe we missed one thing that was indeed quite good at this place.

I know it’s possible to screw up any food but I hate to be a witness to it. This was the worst shawarma I’ve ever had. At Shawafel the shawarma is just like a wrap, a long burrito, a bundle of meat and such in a thin tortilla (not a thick pita bread). After a rather notable wait on a quiet evening, the man shouted out my name and I picked up a barely warm lamb/​beef combo. The meat was dry, the sauce was skimpy, only a hint of tomato and lettuce, but I have to say nice things about the mint sauce. $ 7.50 worth of disappointment.
A side of fries for another $ 2.50 was also barely warm also altho supposedly made fresh, showered with a bit of oregano and sesame in the Lebanese style, but jeez people, fries have to be HOT when they’re fresh.
And the place either has no a/​c or chose to leave it off, so we sat in a hot restaurant that I had hoped would be cool, eating cool food that shoulda been hot. Argh.
Vegetarian rating: many veg choices, a platter brought baba ganoush, hummus, fried cauliflower, felafel, tahini and a big stack of thin bread, like tortilla wedges. But the flavors were not right.
I’m sure it all tastes great if you’re hammered. :/