![]() Mother-and-son team Krstein Kantarji and Eyad Kawak came to Southern California to live near family after escaping the ongoing Syrian civil war, fleeing first to Lebanon. I like the chicken with extra toum, though if I was eating only one (and I can usually down two) I’d go for the juicy, spice-riddled lahme. It’s fastest when Kamal is around, but, more important, the quality is consistent regardless of his presence. Multiple staffers might be darting behind the counter and it can still take 20 minutes, which feels protracted given the hyper speed at which I’ve seen cooks slice and roll shawarma in Beirut. Service can seem slow, especially in the mid-stretch of the restaurant’s long days. Sincerely Syria opens for lunch and doesn’t close until midnight. It would take his recipe to another level altogether. Kamal has the equipment for saj bread he’s looking to move Hollywood Shawarma to a sit-down space where he could start making bread on the saj. Once you calibrate your tastes, you can ask for customizations: Extra toum or tahini or pickles? A handful of fries in your chicken shawarma (a popular addition in Lebanon)? No problem.įor the larger combos, Kamal relies on flour tortillas to fill in for khubz, the papery Levantine flatbread typically used for shawarma cooked on a domed griddle called a saj. The more I eat Kamal’s food, the more I suggest starting with the smaller, fundamental sandwich to best appreciate the proportions. Most bites include one or both vegetables for treble brightness, but mostly the flavors boom with earthy bass rounded out by the tahini.Įach has its own canon sauce: tahini-based tarator for the lamb and beef, toum (whipped garlic sauce) for the chicken.Ĭhoose between hand-held wraps, or 12- and 24-inch “combo” versions that come with extra pickles and fine-enough fries. ![]() He makes wraps appealingly compact, in the style he learned working at shawarma stands in Syria, where he was raised. I rip in, not wanting the crispness to steam away. Kamal crinkles foil around the parcel before handing it over. This batch of shawarma is juicy he sears every angle to a deep mahogany, ensuring the ingredients stay contained. Then he griddles the bundle on a flattop, weighted with a grill press. Kamal saws off shards of beef and lamb from the rotisserie behind the restaurant’s counter, spreads the half-pita with tahini and rolls the meat tightly with chopped tomatoes and pickled cucumber spears. The thinner layer superbly intensifies the wrap’s ratios. It’s a common request that I learned from Lebanese friends. I gesture as if peeling the bread apart into two rounds. “Can I have my shawarma wrap made with one side of a pita?” I ask Adham Kamal, the owner of Sincerely Syria in Sherman Oaks.
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