This video was created in collaboration with Erick Galindo, the Culture Editor of The L.A. Local, a nonprofit news organization that believes all Angelenos deserve useful news and information.
Tirsa and Steve Farah met 14 years ago while out clubbing. According to Tirsa, Steve didn’t quite pique her interest until he mentioned culinary school. They were both students at the now-closed Le Cordon Bleu, never fated to meet until a night out years later.
Now the couple owns and operates Tirzah’s Mexi-Terranean, a restaurant in El Sereno serving a mix of Egyptian and Mexican cuisine inspired by the food they enjoy at home.
Tirsa tells L.A. TACO that she determines whether the restaurant will be busy by measuring how much sun is out. Beautiful skies equate to crowds of customers, packing the small establishment.
Years ago, Tirsa and Steve ran a restaurant called Tirsa’s Mexican Cafe in Downtown L.A. before relocating and completely renovating the menu, the newest change being the inclusion of Steve’s family recipes from their Egyptian homeland.
“Steve is currently tasked with basically learning all of the recipes, like everything–the marinades, the falafel,” Tirsa says. “Everything Egyptian that we do is his mom's recipes. And he's been the one learning to adopt all that.”
This process includes Steve watching his mother cook instinctively, without exact measurements. He takes diligent notes in order to later replicate her recipes.
You may have seen Tirsa on your social media feed, acting out a skit or participating in a popular trend to promote the restaurant. Her Instagram videos routinely receive tens of thousands of likes, which is practically unheard of for a small business.
“It can be scary where you're like, ‘I don't want these eyes on me, but my business needs these eyes on me,’ and it's also a way for me to cope,” Tirsa says. “I love the funny outlet. It's just, running a business, the only time we get to be silly, because every day is kind of like a war zone for us back there.”
In a kitchen with just enough space for workers to shimmy around one another, the Tirzah’s team churns out specialties like homemade sopes, kofta-filled burritos, and Egyptian nachos.
The homemade sopes can be ordered with any protein, including falafel, which are shaped just slightly larger than their traditional falafel balls to totally encompass the sope-saucers that Tirzah’s creates.
We had the sopes with esquites on the side, spritzing both the corn and falafel with lime. The fluffy texture of Tirzah’s sopes make for pillowy landing pads, cupping crispy falafel patties. The ingredients are noticeably fresh, the many herbs painting the chickpea-fava bean fritters green. Each bite quickly gives way to another in an attempt to take in as much of this irreplicable dish as possible.
One of their most popular dishes, the “L.A. Kebab” burrito, fuses Egyptian flavors and ingredients with classic Mexican-Californian street food: your choice of meat, hummus, fries, feta cheese, cucumbers, and tomato wrapped in a flour tortilla.
We went with the kofta, a kebab made from minced lamb and beef, seasoned with care and generosity. Garlic sauce and pickled red onions elevate the burrito from the inside, and red and green salsa are served alongside this creation, which falls in the highest tier of L.A. burritos.
Their Egyptian nachos require two hands to hold and can be split with your whole party: corn tortilla chips loaded with frijoles made in-house, feta cheese, cucumber salad, pickled red onions, and your choice of meat. (L.A. TACO opted for the carne asada.) Garlic sauce, tzaziki, and hummus bring creaminess and flavor to the spread, a fresh respite to the layers of steak.
See the beauty of these Mexican-Egyptian dishes for yourself in L.A. TACO and LA Local’s video documenting the behind-the-scenes at Tirzah’s Mexi-Terranean in El Sereno.
Tirzah’s ~ 4625 Valley Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90032
Closest Metro line and stop: Metrol Local 76 Bus - “Valley/Del Paso”
