BEST HUMMUS IN LOS ANGELES 2020 - DR. SANDWICH

DR. SANDWICH has been recognized by a lot of middle Easterners as having the best Hummus in LA and in Beverly Hills ( They have two restaurants).  It also has unbelievable Pita bread - that tastes fresh and is very different than any other Pita's one purchases anywhere in LA. Unlike the American Pitas that are bought in Supermarkets and in many Middle Eastern Restaurants that are very thin and usually somewhat hard - Dr. Sandwich's pitas are thick, fluffy and are so fresh - they feel like they just came out of an oven.

Their Falafel is also great with a perfect taste and texture and so are other dishes they serve.

There's always a large line of people waiting to purchase their hummus - as there are a lot of middle easterners and middle eastern food lovers and the secret has been shared by all of them about this restaurant.

Now with Covid 19, there's a lot of people picking up  and rightfully so.

SO why the - BUT...

The but - is because it is relatively expensive to eat Hummus at this restaurant and they do small things that truly ruin the experience.

1. The most annoying thing is that a Hummus plate costs $10 - and it comes with a relatively small amount of hummus on the plate and only ONE!!! PITA bread.

Who ever finished a whole hummus plate with only one Pita bread? 

Most people eat 2-3 pitas with their plate - which hikes the price of a hummus plate to about $12 as they charge extra for each pita.

They will give you pickles if you ask - but those too come in a very small plastic dish. The dish is about the size of small dishes inwhich people get ketchup in other places.

Middle easterners love pickles with their Hummus - and most places are very generous about the pickles and throw also olives and other pickles vegetables to show their generosity.

Dr. Sandwich gives you pickles only if you ask - and also - in a very small portion and will fill it up if you ask.

If you want a small salad or pickled white cabbage dish which a lot of people love to eat with their Hummus that will cost you extra. Relatively a lot more extra. 

Some restaurants give these two for free if they charge an expensive price for their hummus - and other restaurants give an option to order small side dishes of these two as sides.

But this restaurant doesn't do that and forces you if you want these a salad and pickled veggies that aren't pickles- to buy them as full side dishes.

I get it - that this restaurant is in Beverly Hills - and everything is more expensive also for them - when they need to maintain it in a 90212 area code.

But usually in Beverly Hills - if you want to justify high prices - one has to look the part - and this restaurant looks far from a high end place.

The restaurants decor is very basic. It doesn't have the feel of a high end restaurant. To me it felt like a pedestrian fast food diner inside a gas station in Israel - who's main clientelle is truckers stopping for a fast food meal on their way from Beer Sheva to Tel Aviv.

BOTTOM LINE:

I loved their Hummus - and I do hope this place will survive and continue thriving.

Seeing so many middle eastern restaurants come and go in LA - I know how hard it is to keep a restaurant alive in a city where people love change and aren't loyal to even wonderful restaurants.

Because of their great hummus - they have huge lines snaking around the place - but unless they figure out their pricing scheme - and what they offer for their expensive prices - they might find themselves fighting for clients in the future and once some people will be tired of paying so much for so little food and without getting the full Middle Eastern experience - with several Pitas and a plate full of Pickles - they might one day discover that customers are leaving and never coming back.

I truly hope the owners of this wonderful Hummus restaurant realize they have the momentum right now and do the needed changes in their menu and servings to ensure their customers will realize it's not just wonderful Hummus but also a great deal that is worth coming back to again and again.

Only time will Tell - if Dr. Sandwich becomes the HUMMUS CLASSIC in LA - like PINK's is to HOT DOGS - or if it will be a fad - and a wonderful memory of a wonderful restaurant that vanished over time - like DOUGH BOYS was on THIRD STREET.

Regardless of what happens to this place in the future - I do hope everyone tastes their hummus - so that they will be able to say - LA had amazing hummus that could compete with any middle eastern restaurant in the middle east! 

Pitaway on Melrose, Los Angeles

I entered Pitaway on Melrose after seeing the huge sign of grand opening outside. Everyone loves grand openings So I had to enter, hoping for a new love affair with this new place. I learned it’s the second Pitaway in Los Angeles – which might hint they’re hoping to become a franchise. Everything in the look of the store shouts FRANCHISE. It doesn't look like a fast food place but rather like a modern fast food restaurant. That said, the middle eastern restaurant that was there before them - Muma, which was reviewed in this blog in the past - also shouted Franchise – and yet apparently it didn’t make it into a franchise- so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for this one. I think LA does deserve a middle eastern restaurant chain with good and fast falafel. This place is new – so I’ll revisit it in a few month after they solve some of their opening quirks. Wanting this place to succeed – I’ll give my own humble opinion what they need to work on in order to succeed in a very competitive street like Melrose. But would love to hear what other people think of this new place:

FAST FOOD FRANCHISE LOOK:

This restaurant has the logo of a fast food place, the décor of a fast food place, the overall energy of a fast food place, and yet extremely slow food service. The secrets of a fast food franchise is that they nailed down a way to serve their food fast. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Chipotle, Wendy’s, Subway, Fat Burger… Each one has their own method of ensuring that the food is served fast. To me it seemed like this place didn’t have any real organized and institutionalized plan how to ensure the customer gets their food fast and it wasn’t a priority for anyone in the place. It took over 15 minutes to get a falafel in a lafah breah. I appreciated the falafel being fresh but having to wait in a nearly empty restaurant for 15 minutes showed that there’s no respect for the customers time. Since this is the second restaurant with the same name and concept in LA – and the other one already exists for several years – it proves there’s no real plan how to make sure customers don’t spend too much time in the restaurant before getting fed.

PRICING:

The pricing is decent for middle eastern restaurants. Plates are about $11, Pitas $8-9 While it’s not expensive – I think they’re still 10% more than what will make them really competitive and allow them to take of. The woman at the cash register boasted on the fact they’re Kosher which indeed is a huge plus being close to La Brea and the Jewish ultra Orthodox district – but for the general audience it’s not a deal breaker. With so many options on Melrose – and even a highly competitive Indian lunch buffet almost across the street – I believe that $10 is the limit most people will pay for most fast meals. They might get people to come once and try them out – but in order to get repeat business – they need to lower their prices.

PICKLES:

I was highly disappointed they served pickles made in brine and not Pickles in salt. For the non middle easterns reading this blog - to illustrate the difference - assume you're going to a Mexican restauran and instead of corn chips they serve you Cheetos and the waiter tells you it's the same...
Or assume you go to a Chinese restaurant and instead of fried rice they serve you french fries and tell you it's the same...
Get the point?
Every cuisine - has some elements that are a make or break and salted pickles are a must for an authentic middle eastern cuisine.

For many middle eastern food lovers- not having pickles in salt is a deal breaker and that’s why many middle eastern restaurants serve their customers unlimited pickles in salt with each order. Moreover – what made matters worse is they have a free pickled vegetable salad that doesn’t have pickles. I noticed everyone who purchased food after me took the plastic plate they give you to the pickled salad bar and noticing the lack of pickles – joked about it angrily and threw the plate to the garbage without taking anything. Hopefully that’s not the plan – but why would a restaurant want to anger it’s customers on something so trivial and so obvious? It’s a great way to lose customers who are fans of middle eastern food. Portions: I ordered a falafel in a lafah – a middle eastern version of a burrito. It usually costs more than a pita and is supposed to hold much more food. Perhaps other middle eastern restaurants have spoiled me, or perhaps it was just chipotle that made me aware of how much food can really go into a burrito. The falafel in a lafah I got was mostly rolled lafah bread and very little in it. Very few falafels, I didn’t feel the hummus and very few vegetables that made very little impact. The meal costs nearly $10 and for that price I felt cheated. Taste: The overall taste is good – but not spectacular and yet I must give them credit that everything tasted very fresh. The Falafels were hot and fresh, the pita was fresh. The hummus didn’t make any impact and they need to work on it and find a way to give it a much stronger point of view.

Final words:

I want to love this place. I ‘d love for Melrose to have as many middle eastern restaurants as possible – it would be great and I’ll be their biggest fans. Maybe I’m totally wrong – but based on my experience – I don’t think their target audience can only be ultra orthodox Jews who might or might not show up because of their Kosher sign. I think they need to cater to everyone. Families, hipsters and the many young people walking Melrose that are looking for healthy and cheap food. In order to get the general public’s attention this restaurants need to come down to earth and start making cheaper food, in larger quantities that’s in a family price range or else they’ll end up closing like other middle eastern restaurants in that area that have come and gone. Like any other new restaurant on Melrose at the beginning there will be a honeymoon between the locals and this place – as everyone always want to try out the new restaurants on the street. But whomever owns this place needs to show that his vision is not just graphics that present a large corporate style middle eastern restaurant but also the vision of a large corporation – with a big vision and real care for the smallest details. I hope they succeed and will keep all of you posted!

Itzik Hagadol - Encino, California

OVERALL RATING: * ( 1 star out of 5)
PRICE: ULTRA EXPENSIVE
TASTE: * ( 1 star out of 5)

Itzik Hagadol is an Israeli restaurant across the street from the Encino Town Center shopping mall. A great location for a restaurant in Encino that holds so much potential. It shares the same name as a popular middle eastern restaurant in Israel.  From their website it seems that the two restaurant are connected:  http://itzikhagadol.com/

Currently this is the most expensive Middle Eastern restaurant I've eaten in the united states - and unfortunetly the price doesn't justify the experience.

Even their lunch menus are super expensive. 

An average meal is between $30 - $50 per person and when you think what you get in return - some  Hummus and a little bit of middle eastern food -you ask yourself are people crazy for agreeing to pay that price?

As for the taste:

The Hummus is mostly bland and uninspiring just like most of their salads.
That said, their Pitas are baked on the premise and are wonderful and fresh. 

Their lunch 10 salad special is a scam. It's not only expensive (about $10 per person as a main dish and about $6 for a side dish and everyone at the table is forced to pay it regardless if only one person orders it or if everyone orders it) They bring to the table those salads that are the least inspiring. They don't give Hummus, Tabulleh or any of the salads that are what people usually desire and expect when they crave for middle eastern salad.

During lunch when I was there, the place was packed which proves that perhaps some people don't mind paying a lot and getting very little. 

Nearbye there are a lot of middle eastern restaurants. One of them even advertises a full buffet meal for $9.99. So it make one wonder about the logic or rational of Hummus lovers.

Here is their address for those not caring about price or taste. 

17201 Ventura Boulevard

Encino, CA 91316
(818) 784-4080

Habibi Cafe Westwood California

Every reviewer is always torn between his personal tastes and what he sees is the taste of the general public.  Perhaps that's why it's so hard for me to give an awful review to a successful restaurant that's always full of people. Maybe being a middle eastern myself  that causes my standards to be a bit high. Perhaps the crowd that comes to Habibi is less interested in the Hummus and more fascinated with smoking a Hookah close to UCLA. Habibi is  usually packed with college students wanting to mingle and smoke a Hookah.
But for those wanting a Hummus not a Hookah  I say - AVOID this place.

The Hummus tasted old and generic. I  felt it had too much garlic and I love garlic. So stating that something has a strong garlic after taste-  is not a comment I've ever used.

I also ordered their Falafel sandwich which comes in a small pita. There were about three Falafels in it overall and at the end I still felt hungry and unsatisfied. It costs $6.00 which is double what I would have paid if I would have ordered three one falafel in a small pita.
The Falafel came in the sandwich without hummus which was also dissapointing.

Their Falafel plate is $14 which I feel is robbery .

The Falafel is good but not great. I give it credit for being fresh - but the taste was nothing to write home about.  That said the way it was served was dissapointing. Tiny pita that doesn't really resemble a middle eastern pita - with a hole. It's more like a puffy Burrito or one of those things you get at a Greek restaurant. That contributed to the messy eating experience with this. It was also wrapped in an unusual way that made the entire meal uncomfortable and everything kept falling out of the sandwich.
If you're a college student on a date - don't eat the Falafel - cause you're almost guaranteed to look like a fool.

I wanted to check their take out as well and ordered a Hummus to go and got it in a paper box which was a first - Cheap paper that became soggy and added to the awful taste of the Hummus.
Also, they were extremely ungenerous with the Hummus. They served it in a very small quantity - oh and they dizzled some olive oil which helped make the box even soggier. This treat will run you $5.95 which for the size I felt was overpriced.

They don't accept Mastercard or Visa for under $10 - which means you can't just go in there and order a falafel sanwich . I waited to get the Falafel to go for over 20 minutes even thought there was no one there. The place has bad service and is very slow. Guess people who go there aren't in a rush.

If you're a college student and want to sit with friends to smoke a Hookah I'd recommend this place.
For food - I suggest go elsewhere.

This Hummus is one of the worst Hummus I've tasted in Los Angeles - and so I give this place a one star - only for the atmosphere.

AVOID. AVOID. AVOID if possible!