Shawarma House — Restaurant in Garden Grove

So I consider myself a shawerma and masabaha (hummus) aficionado. I have lived in the Middle East for a decade and tried shawerma and masabaha in more places than I can remember. I take few foods as seriously as I take these two items. It took me a few years of testing out shawerma and masabaha (hummus) here on socal to find good places. Honestly, most don't come close to the OG. There was one place in Seattle that had amazing versions (for US) standards. Most of the ones I tried overseas are better by miles than the best ones here are.

So, back to the point, shawerma house has bad shawerma. They are an affront to the name. They charge you more for garlic (unheard of in the ME), which I consider a huge point to a restaurant's detriment. Shawerma isn't shawerma without extra garlic. The shawerma itself tastes like regular grilled chicken. They also add onions (!?!!) and tomato to the sandwich. It's terrible. On the other hand, they had decent mshawi (kabab and shish tawooq). But the prize was the masabaha!!! It was the closest thing to the OG I've had in the US. So, naturally, I spent years purchasing it and other items from them. I even had my friends and relatives do so.

Things changed recently. This year, twice, the hummus was spoiled (the first time) and half spoiled or on the verge of being rotten (second time).

Some context, I am a very disabled person. I take my joys where I can (finding food good for me and that I enjoy is difficult). I also can't work, so I can't buy stuff whenever I want. Anyways, I send others to get the food since I am stuck in a prison. The first time I had my helper return the hummus, she forgot the actual spoiled hummus, but the store returned it with some complaints from them. All was well. The second time, I made sure she got the bad food with her. This time, the store returned my money, but refused to sell me any more food or replace the hummus my helper traveled twice (it's far from my home) to purchase.

That, obviously, is a problem. They screw my limited dinners (due to my health) and, not only leave me hungry for those few days, but refuse to compensate me with the same item I was willing to pay for.

So, what is their solution? Just buy the rotten food (rotten hummus is nasty, and toxic, btw) and don't eat it!

This sucks. For a multitude of reasons. But I guess they lost my, and others, business. I did 2 stars because, despite the severe inconvenience and rotten food, they did return the money and the mashawi is good (when it's not burnt).

I advise going to ElRotana shawerma (or something similar to that name, it's a food truck) in Santa Ana for great shawerma! I discovered them recently. If you enjoy it,...

This is a little hole in the place for shawarma. The service is very quick-service.

When you come in, you order, you find a place to sit (potentially clean it yourself) and then pick up your food from the counter and enjoy. There was a guy who went through and busses the tables while we were waiting for the food.

They have a speaker for the patio so when they call your name you don't have to be inside and wait for your food.

FOOD:

Mixed Shawarma Wrap: OMG. This wrap is divine. The wrap itself is so nice and crunchy on the outside and the meat is juicy and delicious on the inside. The veggies bring a nice freshness to it and if that isn't enough for you then they offer three different sauces. I personally love the garlic dip/sauce. Definitely recommend this!

Hummus: The hummus tastes standard to me. Good but not mind blowing.

Baba Ghanoush: This is wonderful. My wife and I make a Romanian version of this. You can taste the roasting of the eggplant and it has just such a great smoky flavor.

Tziki: This is also nice. It has a good freshness and is exactly as it should be.

Beef Shawarma Plate: This was also delicious. The flavors on the dish come together nicely and the rice was cooked beautifully. We just mixed everything together and it was amazing :)

We got our food pretty quickly, around 10-15 minutes.

So they did forget a few items from our order but without hesitation they fixed it right away. They also do not have free water as all of the drinks are in bottles.

OVERALL: If you can get past the few service challenges which are not actually that bad, then the food is worth it for sure!

I am going to forego the service issues and give this place a 5...

As an Arab and someone who visits many Mediterranean/ Middle Eastern restaurants, I find this restaurants food below average. I ordered the mixed platter and it l found it to be tasteless and dry. Hummus had a weird aftertaste, I realised it was from the Tahini as I tasted the tahini sauce on the side. Rice is plain, nothing special. Salad is mid. All I could taste on the meat was one type of spice and I cannot pinpoint what it was, all spice maybe or cinnamon? It was very faint. Garlic sauce didn’t have any flavour at first but the garlic kicked in a bit after.

I’m very confused by the reviews, I tasted there kofta and that was dry but it has some flavours. I think what this restaurant could do is visit other popular and highly rated restaurants to see what they are doing. Figure out a way to get the meat juicy, give it flavour, don’t be afraid! Add some lemon to make the meat more bright. Bring in a professional food taster to taste test your food to see how you can elevate it. Have some Middle Eastern grandmas come in and give you there opinion. Have me come in! If you’re doing this well, you’ll do better with great improvement. I see you have good reviews, you have many people coming in, but truly the food was below average.

Environment seemed lively. I had little interaction with one worker and he...