After reading through that recent mega-post about shawarma in SoCal, I found myself in Gardena for an event and I was just blocks away from the Syrian shawarma shop, Borjstar, located on Rosecrans and Normandie, in a small strip mall with its own parking lot.
u/quiblitz gave the beef high marks but the cashier offered me samples of both the beef and chicken and I found both flavorful so I opted for a combo wrap. (I was curious to try the Arabic-style plate but I wasn't that hungry so I went with a wrap this time).
I have to say: I went in with moderately high expectations and this met/exceeded them. I thought both the beef and chicken were seasoned beautifully: really tasty and especially with the beef, there was a nice, rich, beefy flavor to it though I actually thought the chicken was better marinated/spiced overall.
While I do prefer some amount of acid in something like the pita sandwiches they serve at Sababa Falafel Shop, I still found Borjstar's shawarma wrap to be plenty delicious, especially when you slather on a little bit of the garlic sauce and the spicy sauce (which isn’t really spicy at all but it does add some acid to help cut through the richness of the meats). Rating: 8/10
Meanwhile, more recently, I hit up Karachi BBQ Tonight in Bellflower, located in a large shopping center on the corner of Lakewood, just south of the 91 freeway. Parking isn't an issue here.
The restaurant is still in their soft opening phase; they started operating about three months ago. As such, I want to be considerate in my review here since they're likely still ironing things out.
Similar to Borjstar, I opted for a wrap/roll rather than a full plate. The cashier recommended the malai chicken. The rolls here are basically a naan wrapped around a protein (and yeah, I know: the photos aren't great but it's not easy to photograph these without fully deconstructing them which then gets in the way of me, you know, eating them).
As much as I would like to show love for a new business, I found the chicken roll to be rather underwhelming. One thing that you can probably see from the photo is that the bread to ingredient ratio is off . It’s the same thing as a sandwich in which there’s just too much bread and not enough filling. In this case when you bite into the roll, mostly what you get is the taste of flatbread, which doesn’t have much of a taste at all here, but not enough of the richness or savoriness of the chicken. I really didn't even get a sense of the texture of the chicken because the naan took up so much of every bite. (I also think this would’ve benefited from some fresh vegetables for texture and/or marinated vegetables for acidity). Rating: 5/10
They gave me a pair of small samosas just to try, which I appreciated. These were fine but nothing memorable. Rating: 6/10
I might be down to go back again to try the beef wrap instead or just get a plate, maybe the biryani, but overall, I think they would benefit from either using a thinner flatbread or buy increasing the amount of ingredients, including some kind of acidity.
by soulsides
Dining and Cooking