Eat your way across L.A.
Get our weekly Tasting Notes newsletter for reviews, news and more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
1
For a small restaurant, Mini Kabob packs a powerful punch. The meat specialist has been serving grilled beef and chicken skewers for 33 years from a tiny three-table space just off Central Avenue in Glendale, home to one of the largest Armenian communities in the United States.
In this week’s episode of “Off Menu,” host and Food columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson visits the Martirosyan family — Ovakim, Alvard and son Armen — and gets to know one of the most beloved restaurants in the city. Patriarch Ovakim, once a chef in the Soviet army, oversees the family’s traditional-leaning restaurant.
On weekends, Armen branches out with his own grilled meat project — a pop-up called Mid East Tacos, which he operates as a passion project in Highland Park and in downtown L.A. at the food marketplace Smorgasburg. Lucas chats with the Martirosyans and learns about their family history, and the history of the food they’ve been cooking for decades.
