I made a post a while back about Sababa Falafel Shop in Garden Grove, whose pita sandwiches are amongst my absolute favorite sandwiches in SoCal and u/somuchhaireverywhere chimed in to say “I would say that the flavor and value is better at Shawarma House."
It took a while but I finally was able to check out Shawarma House. They're located in a larger mini-mall off Harbor Boulevard, just south of Lampson. Parking won't be an issue here.
Both restaurants serve Levantine-style dishes and both have their roots in Palestinian cuisine. Sababa is more focused on their sandwiches but they do bowls whereas Shawarma House does larger plates in addition to wraps.
Just to compare sandwich to sandwich, I got the mixed beef/chicken wrap at Shawarma House (as per the recommendation of the cashier). They also gave me a pair of falafel balls on the side to try (those were fine but didn't strike me as being that noteworthy).
Here's how I'd compare the two restaurants:
Bread: Sababa uses pita bread supplied by a local vendor. It’s the best pita I have had in terms of the softness of the texture but as I have not sampled different pita options across the board, I can’t definitively say it’s the best in the area but I do think it’s very very good by any objective standard.
Shawarma House uses a thin flatbread that is grilled before serving. Not only does this warm the exterior, which is nice, but it adds a subtle crunch to every bite which is also nice.
Verdict: Sababa. There was nothing memorable about the flatbread at Shawarma House even though the way that they prep it is good but every time I have the pita sandwich at Sababa I find myself thinking, “damn, this is a really good pita.”
Fillings: Sababa offers falafel, chicken, steak, or vegetables and you can mix and match at different price points. You can customize the sauces and vegetables inside when you order.
Shawarma House offers falafel, chicken, and steak. They do a chicken/steak combo in while I didn’t order it myself, I’m assuming if you wanted to do a half chicken/half falafel wrap, they would hook that up for you. You don’t select what sauces or vegetables go into the wrap but at minimum I definitely picked up on pickles and onions. They give you two sauces on the side: a really nice garlic sauce and a rather thin and not-spicy, spicy sauce.
Verdict: Sababa, and it’s not particularly close. Even if you don’t highly customize your sandwich there, what you get on default means more acid and more crunch and more flavor. You could argue that the flavor of the protein is not as prominent in their sandwich as a result but the overall experience is, in my opinion, incredible on both a flavor and texture level.
Don't get me wrong: the Shawarma House wrap was really good. It has some acid to balance things out, the amount of protein they give you isn’t just generous but the meats were also well-seasoned, you could taste the beef, no complaints at all there. This is not about one sandwich being bad and the other one is good, this is about one sandwich being good and the other sandwich, in my subjective opinion, being better
Value: The base falafel sandwich at Sababa is $14. The base falafel wrap at Shawarma house is $10. It’s not like I'm trying to be ShoPhoCho and bringing scales with me to verify whose sandwich is bigger but my impression is that you get a bigger sandwich at Shawarma House (but maybe that's because, by cutting it in half, it makes the sandwich look bigger.)
Verdict: Shawarma House. While I don’t think it’s the better sandwich, if you’re factoring bang for buck, their wrap is more affordable.
Overall verdict: Sababa. As I said earlier, I think Shawarma House makes it very good sandwich but Sababa's pita sandwich is at my top tier of favorite dishes in SoCal. As such, it’s totally worth the extra four dollars especially as I have had even more expensive Levantine-style sandwiches at other places that weren’t even half as good as either of these places.
My thanks to u/somuchhaireverywhere for their original comment that sent me on this mission and I respect their preference for Shawarma House even if I still stick by my love for Sababa.
by soulsides
Dining and Cooking