‘It looks like a war.’ How Armenia’s $38 brisket sandwich sparked a debate about culture and cost

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‘It looks like a war.’ How Armenia’s brisket sandwich sparked a debate about culture and cost

On the plate, half a kilo of Wagyu brisket seared with pickles and Mornay sauce, all wrapped in freshly made pita bread. On the Internet, it’s a cultural flashpoint.

In late June, the viral basturma brisket sandwich from Glendale restaurant Yerord Mas found itself among hundreds of comments dividing cost, culture and respect after a content creator deemed the sandwich “not worth” the $38 price tag.

But it was the promoter’s additional jab of “F— traditional style” that most angered Yerord Mas chef-owner Arthur Grigoryan. He called the words of the creator Richie Gaines “offensive” and announced that Yerord Mas will no longer serve the sandwich.

Days later, after receiving numerous calls, texts and online messages asking him to continue serving the basturma sandwich, including from popular kebab shop and rotisserie shop Zankou Chicken, Grigoryan decided to keep the sandwich on the menu after all.

Yerord Mas co-owner cooks Arthur Grigoryan at his Glendale restaurant.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

This phenomenon brings into sharp relief the influencer culture that has pitted local restaurants against content creators.

The Instagram, TikTok and Reddit boards were filled with almost 1,000 comments about Yerord Mas’s “ragequit” debate, some disparaging the restaurant and others the promoter.

Gaines said his TikTok post about the sandwich, which has garnered more than 125,500 views, was not intended as a criticism of Armenian culture. But Grigoryan said Gaines echoes an old debate about the cost and “value” of food that is often considered “cheap.”

Admittedly unfamiliar with Armenian food or basturma, Gaines compared the brisket sandwich to a pastrami-and-pickle sandwich at a Jewish restaurant. Langer charges $24 for a hot-pastrami sandwich, while Katz’s Delicatessen in New York costs $28.95. Compared to those prices, Gaines considered Yerord Mas’s sandwich “decent.”

“I don’t like such comparisons because whether people see it or not,” Grigoryan said in an interview, “he’s actually saying, ‘Oh, this culture is better than this culture.'”

The sandwich gained popularity with a pop-up he launched in 2018 with his wife, owner and manager Takouhi Petrosyan. In January, they opened Yerord Mas as a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the mall, offering sandwiches alongside traditional Armenian dishes influenced by the chef’s family roots and travels through Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and other parts of the Levant.

“It’s crazy, since we opened, there have been at least four or five debates about this sandwich,” Grigoryan said. Half of the people defend us, and the other half say, ‘Oh, they’re hiding behind the customs to justify the price.’

Gaines, who is also a stand-up comedian, called Grigoryan’s response to his post “very weird,” “kind of slanderous” and “like a real-life episode of ‘Seinfeld,” likening the Glendale chef to the hit show Soup Nazi.

He started posting viral LA dish critiques after being injured on the job and never expected them to go away.

“I can go to many of these places and some of them will be very good,” he said. “I want them all to be good … but there are so many places I’ve been to where I’m like, ‘Why did I come here?’ and I’m actually angry.”

Gaines said in an interview that his sentence about “traditional style” was misunderstood, and he rejected claims of cultural insensitivity leveled against him.

“I like to comment, I say, ‘If [with] traditional food, or street food, you charge a lot but you give less, then you know, f— that,'” he said. “And that can apply to any type of food.”

Many commenters said they appreciate that Gaines “tells it like it is.”

“Honesty is so refreshing,” wrote one viewer. Others called the price “crazy,” “crazy” and “highway robbery.” But Gaines said he also received messages that were directly hateful, including antisemitic.

Sandwich defenders also entered.

One reminded angry onlookers that smoked brisket would cost a comparable price at a steakhouse, theoretically without the backlash.

“This is the level I want in my restaurant, and Armenian food or Middle Eastern food in general, because it should be like that,” Grigoryan said. “It’s a technology like every other type of food in the world, but it’s considered cheap food on the go.

Yerord Mas chef-owner Arthur Grigoryan holds a piece of bread baked in the outdoor oven.

The chef said he understands why people might be surprised by the price, but in addition to rent, labor, utilities, equipment, maintenance and insurance, the sandwich ingredients alone cost $12.

Each sandwich at Yerord Mas includes at least half a pound of Australian Wagyu, which costs about $11.50 per pound and is cured and smoked on site. Small briskets take three to four days to dry, while larger cuts can take up to one week. His pickles take three to five days to prepare.

And instead of the sliced Swiss cheese he used to use, there’s a heavier Mornay sauce with Gruyère and premium milk from California’s Straus Family Creamery. The bread is made with organic Central Milling flour and is baked fresh in an outdoor oven. All parts, says Grigoryan, take time, and the final price reflects all this.

“When the whole conversation becomes, ‘These people are greedy, these people charge too much,'” Grigoryan said, “then all [these online comments] about Armenians being criminals, I reached a high point.”

“We make all these sacrifices for our work and … it comes down to the price,” he said. “Nevertheless [customers who] More importantly than these influencers only have good things to say about us, that tiny percentage seems so loud that it easily gets in your head.”

Grigoryan cites the popular Big Mec — celebrity chef Ludo Lefebvre’s French-inspired burger at Petit Trois — which costs $38. Grigoryan said that he sees the ingredients and its quality comparable to those used in his brisket basturma. He said the pita sandwich is always the restaurant’s best-selling item.

“The Internet loves to give the wrong attention,” he said. “It makes it seem like the online world is a lot more winded than real life is.”