On the menu · $1.50
House Garlic Sauce
Every shawarma shop has meat. Not every shawarma shop has a sauce that people buy extra tubs of to take home and put on eggs. This is the story of our toum: four ingredients, one emulsion, and the closest thing this menu has to a legend.
What toum actually is
Toum means garlic in Arabic, and that tells you the priorities. It's raw garlic, neutral oil, lemon juice, and salt, whipped into a thick white emulsion with no eggs, no dairy, no mayonnaise shortcuts. Done right, it stands up in stiff peaks like something out of a pastry kitchen and hits like something out of a street fight: a clean, sharp garlic blast up front that mellows into a creamy, lemony finish. It's the traditional partner to meat off a spit across Lebanese, Syrian, and Armenian kitchens, and it's been riding shotgun with shawarma a lot longer than any of us have been alive.
The texture is the tell. Watery garlic sauce means a broken emulsion or a blender shortcut. Ours holds its shape on the spoon, which is exactly how you want it holding onto your wrap.
The making of it
Toum is unforgiving, which is why most places buy it. The garlic has to be fresh-peeled, the germ removed so there's no bitterness, and the oil has to go in slowly, in a thin stream, while the emulsion builds. Pour too fast and the whole batch breaks and you start over. There's no fixing broken toum, only humility. Whoever is on toum duty in our kitchen treats it like the precision job it is, and the batch isn't done until it's thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
We make it in-house, in batches, on repeat, because the shop goes through an honestly absurd amount of it. It goes inside every wrap, beside every plate, and into a steady stream of little extra tubs heading out the door.
Why people order extra tubs
Somewhere along the way, regulars stopped treating toum as a condiment and started treating it as a grocery item. They order two or three tubs with their food and we know exactly what's happening: it's going on eggs in the morning, into sandwiches, over roast chicken, onto pizza crusts, into places garlic sauce was never invited and is always welcome. We've heard it called white gold at the counter more than once. We don't argue.
Fair warning, offered with love: this is real raw-garlic toum. You will taste it for a while. Your car will know. The move is to make sure everyone you're with has some too, and then nobody can say anything. Tubs are $1.50 each, available with any order in the shop, by phone at (747) 377-0707, or through DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. The spits get the headlines. The toum gets the loyalty.
Questions, answered
Is the garlic sauce dairy-free and vegan?+
Yes. Real toum is just garlic, oil, lemon juice, and salt. No mayo, no eggs, no dairy. It's vegan and gluten-free.
How strong is it?+
Strong. It's made with raw garlic and it announces itself. The first hit is sharp, then it turns creamy and lemony. If you're garlic-shy, start with a thin layer.
How long does a tub last in the fridge?+
Keep it sealed and cold and it holds for several days. The garlic flavor actually deepens a little over time. If it ever separates, it's past its prime.
Find us on Colorado St
Patar Shawarma · 625 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205
Get directions →Patar Shawarma · 625 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205 · (747) 377-0707 · Open daily 11:00 AM – 2:00 AM