Amir's Falafel

One of our favorite places for lunch is Amir's Falafel, located at 11711 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. My wife and I have been eating at Amir's since it was a little walk-up stand on Laurel Canyon Place. For a while, he had a second shop in the Glendale Galleria. We had not eaten at Amir's very often for many years, but started going again regularly about a year ago.

Amir offers 2 kinds of schwarma - lamb and turkey, or chicken. The sandwiches are great, if somewhat messy. Plates are huge - altho we may get some extra since we are sort of regular customers. His falafel is great - crunchy and tasty. I love his hummus - which could be because I am used to "healthy" (meaning low-fat) hummus from Trader Joe's and the local farmer's markets. Amir's is rich and creamy - delicious!

I think that just about everything here is home made. You can see them cooking large pots of chick peas almost any time you go, for example. Prices aren't really cheap - but the plates, for example, are big enough for two to share - we add a side order of falafel if we are really hungry. The sandwiches are big enough for two, as well - but have you ever tried to cut an overflowing pita bread sandwich in half? Just go for the whole thing, instead - you won't be able to resist eating it all.

Let's get started!

Welcome to my new blog about food - primarily about restaurants in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles - but, really, anything about food at all. I started thinking about this yesterday as I was driving somewhere with my wife, and all these ideas kept popping into my head. Now I just need to put them down on "paper."

The impetus for this is the fact that I am eating out for lunch on my own a lot more - my wife has some health problems, so she is not accompanying me, which has freed me up to try a lot of restaurants she had no interest in. Nothing fancy - just all the small places I have driven by over the years, and wanted to check out. I'll try to give you some sense of the place, of the one or two dishes I have tried, and of other food topics that they make me think of.

Right now, I am going to put down some thoughts offline, trying to capture that stream of consciousness I had in the car yesterday. I don't expect anyone to find this now - but if you do, come back later for some real content!

Dan Kronstadt