Under bridges, nestled in well-lit eateries, on the go, battling mid-level sapa and days tinged with boredom, silent cravings and diets given up all have one common factor… a well-wrapped, warm, wetly decadent roll of shawarma.

There’s little else more annoying than spending your last 1k (however much your personal ‘last 1k’ is) on substandard, yet highly-anticipated, food and having to deal with the fallout that might look like biting into your shawarma and finding shaki.

Yet, what makes a shawarma worth the ‘last 1k’? Chicken? Beef? More than 2 sausages? The answer came to me the moment I bit into the best shawarma I’ve ever had, after trekking from 3rd Mainland Bridge to Gbagada (a very long, unfortunate story about a bus and some headphones) and the most decadent sauce spilled onto my tongue. I saw the stars, the moon and all the galaxies as I walked under the hellish Lagos sun.

Now, I might be overstretching the truth a little but the crunch, the meat and the freshness of the veggies mean nothing without the decadent, heavy moisture of the perfect sauce. A creamy, rich, spicy sauce ensures a perfect harmonisation of all the individual components of the shawarma, and skipping over this detail can mean a waste of your “last 1k” (or if you’re the DIY kind, a waste of your resources, dishes to be done and a subpar shawarma to console your efforts).

The perfect sauce does not have a set recipe; it’s more the principle of the mixture. Too much mayonnaise and you’ve turned it into the nasty coleslaw they serve at parties; too much pepper sauce and is it even worth it at that point? You’ve got to spice it delicately. Remember: it’s a complement, not the main dish. Typically, shawarma sauce contains mayonnaise, ketchup, a pepper sauce of some sort and if you’re paying over N2000, probably some chilli sauce.

“Anyone who sells SHAWARMA DURinG the day is a crook and CANNOT be trusted.”

While the sauce is the most important part of the shawarma, the appearance of pomo or shaki in this legendary wrap is on the other extreme — the DON’T DO IT end of things. Can we *please* leave all this experimentation and keep ugwu leaves, substandard tasting sausages or fried rice vegetables out of shawarma?

Now that we’ve established the contents of the perfect shawarma, where can this unicorn be found? After conducting extensive research at the expense of my wallet and diets, I found that the best shawarma is hidden in plain sight — right on the streets of Lagos. You can only sneak up on these unicorns by taking a risk and buying one from a nighttime vendor. Bottom line is: Anyone who sells during the day is a crook and CANNOT be trusted. I learned this the hard way.

And there you have it — this is what makes a shawarma worth your coins and worth risking it all to get some more, even at the expense of higher transport fares and a stained white shirt.

Emma Robyn is an unapologetic Lagos addict, here to be the Virgil to your Dante.