On a the latest weekday afternoon, a sold-out indication hung across the acquire-out window at a person of the hottest new eateries in the San Fernando Valley. A banner stretched across the eatery’s outside wall was printed with the Wikipedia definition of a boreka.
A handful of feet away, a younger couple munched on the savory Israeli avenue-food stuff whilst seated on crates below the shaded awning of a strip shopping mall. A leashed pet dog lounged at his owner’s toes, exuding an aura of chill.
This was the web page of Bo-Re-Kas Sephardic Pastries. Considering the fact that opening in an 800-sq.-foot kitchen area on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks very last yr, the kosher-licensed takeout place has launched borekas, a baked pastry, to Angelenos in the Valley. They’ve garnered the like of area foodies in the system evidenced by the near-frequent lines of persons outside the takeout window.
Co-owned by Uzi and Gal Wizman, Bo-Re-Kas opened in Oct 2022 and has given that captivated appreciable notice on social media and by community information shops – “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot gave the Israeli-owned enterprise a shout-out on her Instagram site. Credit goes to chef Uzi’s flaky, mouthwatering treats, which are produced with butter as a substitute of the normally utilised margarine or oil.
The consequence is a lighter, even healthier taste, Uzi’s spouse, Gal, claims.
“It feels cleaner,” she reported. “You don’t get the major flavor afterward.”
The menu at Bo-Re-Kas is uncomplicated and offers 4 alternatives of fillings: Ricotta cheese with Za’atar spice, which is their most common fungi, onion, and truffle feta with spinach and potato and brown sugar. Served in cardboard pizza packing containers, every single order of borekas will come with schug, a Yemenite sauce tomato pulp a hardboiled egg and a pickle. The outcome — a hearty, no-frills Israeli culinary expertise in the San Fernando Valley—is sababa (fantastic). “It’s getting awesome,” Gal explained to the Journal. “It’s becoming 1 of those sites that all people wishes to go to.”
Uzi – who also owns kosher burger cafe Psy, found in the exact same strip mall in Sherman Oaks – claimed the attractiveness of the borekas are close to-common, which most likely describes why there is debate amongst foodstuff scholars more than wherever borekas occur from at first.
“Everyone has flour,” he reported. “Everyone has oil. Absolutely everyone has dough. Absolutely everyone has manufactured something identical, so anyone can say, ‘It’s coming from my country.’ ‘No, it is coming from my state.’ No, it is not,” Uzi insisted. “It’s from in all places.”
The Haifa native’s borekas are inspired, in part, by a café in the northern Israeli port town named Borekas Ha’agala.
With the eatery’s growing recognition, there is the obvious dilemma: do Uzi and Gal have plans to extend beyond the well known takeout small business they’ve started? The spouse and wife crew suggested the affirmative though declining to deliver supplemental facts.
When they do broaden, changes will be on the horizon, which includes how they handle the all-vital component of dough.
“Hopefully when we expand, we’ll be ready to make it in-property, but in this article we really do not have the area,” Gal mentioned.
Reinforcing the informal, shuk-like Israeli ambiance of the eatery, situated at 15030 Ventura Boulevard, in between Kester Ave. and Sepulveda Blvd., Bo-Re-Kas is open up every working day until finally they promote out. Generally, this comes about sometime involving 1-3 p.m. People are encouraged to connect with forward to place their purchase, at (818) 688-4588, or send out a information instantly by way of Instagram at instagram.com/bo.re.kas.
Even though borekas have become decidedly Israeli, and Bo-Re-Kas is certified kosher — a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) was onsite when the Journal dropped by to sample the items — the small-cafe-that-could is attracting foodstuff-enthusiasts beyond the Jewish neighborhood. Which could be because of, in component, to the treat’s similarity to a further common ethnic food that’s ubiquitous in Los Angeles.
“It touches a ton of people since each and every country has some sort of dough that’s stuffed with anything.” – Gal Wizman
“It touches a lot of people today for the reason that just about every nation has some type of dough that is stuffed with a little something,” Gal reported. “So, every person can relate. All people can be like, ‘Oh, it’s like empanadas.’ ‘No, it’s like burek [the family of pastries found in the Balkans, Middle East and Asia].’ You can literally uncover it everywhere you go.
“So, men and women can connect with it,” she ongoing. “Even if they are not Israeli or have never ever listened to of borekas, they taste it, and it reminds them of a thing they know. It is neat. It’s good persons locate their property, I guess, that way.”