Taste of Mediterranean - Berkeley, Berkeley

"Taste of Mediterranean" is right: each of the restaurant's dozen locations prepares an eclectic menu of cuisines from Greece, the Middle East, and other regions bordering the eponymous sea. The biggest attention grabber in the open kitchen may be the shawarma spit, where custom blends of spices add flavor to the roasting meat that will ultimately layer onto gyro sandwiches and platters. Spend some time at Taste of Mediterranean's counter, and you'll also hear frequent orders of Lebanese shawarma, pita sandwiches, and falafel. Yet whatever the Mediterranean feast of the moment, there's one constant that everyone seems to come back for: the house made 10-spice special sauce.