Borjstar Shawarma Shop

🇸🇾 SYRIA via 🇳🇱 NETHERLANDS
📍 1330 Rosecrans Avenue, Gardena, South Bay.

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Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.
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Kobee Factory and Syrian Kitchen

🇸🇾 SYRIA
📍 14110 Oxnard Street, Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley
🅿️ A few spots in front
🥤 No Alcohol
🌱 Vegetarian Friendly

If you are driving in the Valley these days and see a plume of smoke rising over the next block, it is often a good idea to slow down from your highway cruising speeds and prepare to pull over for one of many Armenian barbecue stands that seem ubiquitous. But on this section of Oxnard Street the smoke is more likely to be the byproduct of an automotive repair shop, seen in all directions surrounding this restaurant, which acts like a bit of an oasis.

When Kobee Factory and Syrian Kitchen opened in late 2014, it immediately became a place much of the Syrian community of the San Fernando Valley came to for sustenance and home cooking. This love found in its cooking was later revealed to the rest of Los Angeles through the generous article the late Jonathan Gold wrote in 2017 for the Los Angeles Times.

Next to the Norias of Hama, the proprietor's photo with the smiling food writer still hangs on the wall, a bit faded along with many of the subsequent articles that came waxing nostalgic about this mostly takeout shop in Van Nuys. A more recent Times Valley map from 2019 and "Best of the Southland" award from 2022 have more color left in them and show the longevity of the restaurant.

If you are coming to Kobee Factory on your own, plan to properly sit down and enjoy your food at its freshest. They do a good job cutting holes in packaging to reduce steaming, and keep the hummus away from the hot items, but unlike a platter of kebabs and rice, much of the food here is better immediately. The fresh salad will be crisp, and that hummus will be smooth and excellent if it only has to travel from the kitchen to your table.

Before moving onto the main entrees, you may notice a couple breakfast items like fatee ($9.99, above top left), which loads hummus and chickpeas on a bed of thin pita shards. After recently enjoying this a lot at Nawal, just the sight of it on a menu led to an intense craving. Mix in the spices on top before enjoying and you will wonder why there is a full aisle of breakfast cereal boxes at every supermarket in the country.

As Gold describes in his article, there are many ways to say the namesake food depending on the country or region you are saying it in, but the family here say "kobee" to describe theirs. Even Wikipedia transliterates this word as "kubbi" when talking about the Syrian version, but Angelenos are probably more familiar with it written as "kibbeh." The city of Aleppo was always famous for having two dozen or so varieties of preparations of the dish, and a few of these are available here in Van Nuys.

The first on the menu is called kobee barbecue ($16.99, above), grilled hockey puck-sized discs of ground beef mixed with and surrounded with bulgur before hitting the grill. The mixture inside is nutty and citrus-y, and has the subtle essence of cinnamon and other spices. The kobee fried ($16.99, not shown) comes as the more familiar fat teardrops put in the deep fryer, but regardless of which you choose also grab a small yogurt salad ($5.99, not shown) for dipping.

Gold wrote off the shawarma without much thought in his review, but in the years since quite a few reviewers who spent parts of their life in Syria had much better things to say. It is certainly not guaranteed for success, but "Food X takes me straight back to Place Y" in a review always raises excitement levels. On a recent visit, a chicken shawarma wrap ($10.99, below) was unavoidable due to cravings, and was even better than expected after reading these good things.

The sandwich is decidedly juicy with garlic sauce and the drippings of the pickles and tomatoes. This is all well contained by the house-made bread, which reads somewhere between a cross of thin pita and roti, both strong and delicious. This is one of the best chicken shawarma wraps enjoyed in recent years, and will be hard to resist on follow-up visits to Kobee Factory.

Success can sometimes be fleeting for restaurants, a rush of business always follows important exposure but eventually calms back down for most places. Thankfully the mother and daughter chefs of this Syrian kitchen took it all in stride and never changed their process. Nine years after first opening, the food is as good as ever and only seems like it will continue this way in the future.

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I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

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Nawal

🇸🇾 SYRIA/CIRCASSIA
📍 838 Solano Avenue, Solano Canyon, Elysian Park
🅿️ Street Parking
💲 Cash/Venmo Only
🥤 No Alcohol

Please check out a new article on Eater Los Angeles that I have written about Nawal, a new-ish backyard pop-up in Solano Canyon offering a taste of Syrian comfort foods through a Circassian lens just behind Dodger Stadium. Excellent editing by Cathy Chaplin and photography by Wonho Frank Lee on the Eater site:

LINK TO EATER ARTICLE

The photos here are from one of my visits:

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I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

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[CLOSED] Mama's Shawarma

🇸🇾 SYRIA
📍 1416 E. Colorado Street, Glendale, Verdugos
🅿️ Plenty of parking in Ralph's lot
🥤 No Alcohol

EDITOR'S NOTE: As of 06 July 2022, the truck has closed down. On Instagram, it is said to be temporary, but seems permanent. An updated version of this article (16 June 2024) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/mamas-shawarma-syrian-food-truck-glendale

 

With the confident swagger of social media savvy younger generations, Mama's Shawarma hit the streets back in January, setting up shop in front of the Northridge University Center shopping mall on Reseda Blvd. They began spending a weekend night or two in Glendale and have since permanently shifted their Syrian flag-adorned truck to this location in front of the Ralphs on Colorado Street for six nights per week.

What immediately stands about them in a city where shawarma wraps are a dime a dozen, is their devotion to Arabic-style shawarma plates. These are more like what you will find at night in the Levant's largest cities, friends and families in front of plates of cut up shawarma wraps that have been covered in fries, squeeze bottles of ketchup at the ready on each table.

For to go orders the fries are laid out on top of a sheet of wax paper, separating them from the sandwiches. They offer two sizes for this, the Mama's plate is $15 for one cut up sandwich, fries, a small salad, pickles, and of course garlic sauce. A much better deal is the Big Mama's plate ($18, below), which adds a full second wrap to the mix and an extra container of garlic sauce for just three dollars more.

You will know just from looking at their shawarma spit inside the truck that the bird is going to be delicious, and the first bite does not disappoint. Fries for this order were overcooked and dried out, but still decent when dipped in their creamy garlic sauce. For the purists, ketchup packets are in your bag, so do not worry.

The truck sets up by about 3pm daily now and sticks around until they sell out of shawarma. Usually well into the late evening, the hour that happens depends on how many "famous" plates they sell, huge round platters that can contain between 5 and 25 sandwiches with fries. While you certainly should not be having parties at the moment, this seems like an excellent catering idea in the (hopefully) near future.

If the person in front of you orders one, it could take up to 30 minutes to get your order so come with a bit of time. A woman (Mama) in the back of the truck is preparing kofte kebabs on metal skewers for grilling that look quite good, so on a visit that requires more than chicken you do have options.

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Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better and you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

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Le Mirage Pastries

🇸🇾 SYRIA
📍 100 S. Brookhurst Street, Anaheim Little Arabia, Orange County
🅿️ Small plaza has parking
🥤 No Alcohol

EDITOR'S NOTE: An updated version of this article (08 December 2023) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/le-mirage-pastries

 

A little over a year ago, the New Yorker published a story by Orange County's beloved (and hated) Gustavo Arellano covering the tale of the ice cream at Le Mirage and its journey from Damascus. Tucked away in the old city of Syria's capital, an almost 140 year old shop selling booza called Bakdash was what owner Maher Nakhal wanted to bring to Anaheim.

If you have ever traveled in the Levant, you have certainly come across booza, the ice cream that stretches when pulled apart and seems to have an ability to resist melting much longer than ice cream we are used to in other places. With ingredients native to the area, this type of dessert has been made since seemingly the beginning of time. A flour made from orchid tubers called salep and the resin of mastic trees used in chewing gum are what gives the ice cream its unforgettable qualities.

Tucked into a small strip mall on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Brookhurst Street, the de facto main drag of Orange County's Little Arabia District, Mr. Nakhal's pastry shop has been around since 2003. Nowadays a large format copy of that New Yorker story is on the wall and the shop's staff seem used to stragglers coming in and asking for a bowl of booza ($7.99, above).

The bowl is served like a flower, with sliced petals of booza rimmed with pistachios. True to its promise, the stretchy fun is all there and brings back good memories for me of enjoying dondurma on sunny days in Turkey.

At first the choice is not obvious, and someone coming in randomly might not even learn about the magical ice cream since the machine is kept out of sight in the back.

The windows are tinted and the shades usually drawn, often times it takes a moment or two to get your eyes adjusted to the interior lighting levels. When you walk in, you are surrounded by three sides with all the pastries that have made the shop popular since its opening.

The baking style here seems to be similar to a familiar Syrian baker in Paterson, New Jersey that involved the conscious draining of honey and syrup from the bottom of each treat. This allows the pastries to remain light and not sickly sweet like cheap baklava can often be when not made with care.

Most customers come in pairs and order kanafeh and either tea or coffee, chat with Mr. Nakhal and amongst themselves, and enjoy a brief reprieve from the hot sun outside.

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I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. It is a hobby born of passion and never solicits money or free food from restaurants. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better please tell your friends about us and if you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

Thank you!

VENMO: @JAREDCOHEE

CASH APP: $JaredCohee

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