The secret menu sandwich that’s making a Philly restaurant TikTok-famous
Grad Hospital takeout shop Falafel Time has long had a secret menu, but now that crispy shawarma has gone viral, one of its if-you-know-you-know sandwiches has become a hit.
Saban Kar walked into Falafel Time on South Street on a quiet Thursday afternoon with one mission: to try the restaurant’s exclusive crispy chicken shawarma wrap.
The West Philly resident had been searching for the crunchy, saucy shawarma sandwich of his native Antakya, Turkey, in the City of Brotherly Love. But it wasn’t until he came across a TikTok video that he found a local restaurant serving this beloved handheld classic.
The crackly shawarma wrap is having a moment on the internet’s virality machine. In video after video, TikTok influencers and internet chefs across the country and in the Philly-area hold blistered rolled sandwiches stuffed with chicken pieces, thin pickle slices, and garlic sauce close to the camera, scraping and biting into toasted wraps for ASMR sounds.
After ordering two sandwiches, Kar explains the wrap style is popular because the added crispiness of the bread brings out the juices of the meat within the sandwich. “There’s not a lot of places in Philly who even warm up their breads for sandwiches,” he said. “[Toasting] just makes the bread taste better.”
At Falafel Time, it’s chef Sam Maymouna’s special sauce made of oil, shawarma spices, garlic, and lemon juice that brings forth the flavor.
He starts by tearing open a pita at the seams in a circular motion, then stacking the two halves on top of each other. The chef then adds a splatter of house-made garlic sauce, a heap of pickles, chicken shawarma freshly sliced off a rotating spit, and a heavy drizzle of a sweet-tart pomegranate balsamic.
Maymouna rolls all the fillings into a long, skinny baton and dips it in the special sauce. The wrap sizzles on the grill until golden brown and crackly.
The viral sandwich isn’t new to the Syrian restaurant. In fact, the wrap has been on a “secret menu,” as Maymouna calls it, at the Graduate Hospital takeout shop since its inception in 2019. Customers in the know — typically Philadelphians from Syria and other Arab countries — seek out Syrian-style shawarma sandwich with a thinner saj bread or a pita in the now-viral crispy style.
“Arabs order [from] it because they know the Syrian way,” Maymouna said. “But now, [the crispy shawarma] got popular because of the viral videos.”
While the TikTok videos haven’t increased sales of the wrap by much yet, the online chatter is leading more Philadelphians to the South Street restaurant — Maymouna estimates he’s selling an additional 10 a day.
Sitting at the counter, Kar took a big bite of the crunchy wrap as he waited for a second order he ordered to-go for his wife. “It is great, but it’s not similar to the ones back in Turkey — for us, there’s more of a red, tomato-like sauce.”
But for the West Philadelphian, it was still exciting to finally find a restaurant in Philly offering a similar sandwich, if not a replica of the one at home. “I’ll give them a seven out of 10‚” he said. “I’m happy I’m going to take one home.”