[This Hole-In-the-Wall Life] S Is for Savory at Jack's Bakery

The first part of my lunch at JACK’S BAKERY flopped: a luleh kebab sandwich. Though the luleh itself (a charbroiled ground beef sausage heavy on the sumac and shiny with yummy juices) was excellent, nothing else impressed about this pita wrap—the tomatoes were squishy, the onions and parsley had no flavor, and why didn’t any fiery garlic sauce coat the meat? Add in the exorbitant cost, and you shouldn’t bother with Jack’s sandwiches any time soon.

I didn’t dwell on the subpar sandwich too long, however, because next up was a bag of lahmajun, otherwise known as Armenian pizza. Jack’s has drawn crowds for years to its claustrophobic, grimy bakery—located in a shopping plaza near where Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Westminster and Santa Ana merge—largely on the strength of the lahmajun. The dish looks easy to prepare—really, just pita bread topped with meat, cheese, or a spread—but the rub is in the execution. Owner Jack Kelislian bakes them daily and to order; the fresh, condensation-sporting bags of six lahmajun next to the cash register sell for eight bucks.

On the day I visited, I took home a bag of lahmajun topped with zaatar, a gasp-inducing spread of oregano, thyme, toasted sesame seeds, and a dash of olive oil. Though as simple a man-made meal as humanity can get, Jack’s zaatar lahmajun can best the elegance of any coastal resort prix fixe. The fluffy, almost-sweet, slightly burnt pita bread mitigates the zaatar’s zest, and just one such lahmajun will fill even the largest guts. And if you insist on two? Just dig into your bag and pull out another.

But Jack’s best bet came at the end: his special “S” cookies. A blown-up copy of a 1995 Orange County Register profile states Kelislian “considers these his signature cookies,” and the boast remains true more than a decade later. They’re shaped like a backward S and don’t appear remarkable at a glance (two can fit in your palm), but one bite proves their worth. One second, you taste ginger; the next chew, the natural sweetness of semolina flour. By the time you’ve masticated the cookie into a fragrant mush, tangy black caraway seeds hidden within its curves twinge your palate. Jack’s Bakery sells many other pastries—baklava, sesame seed cookies, and the rare-to-OC Armenian cracker bread, a tostada-like disk as crispy and delicious as it sounds—but its S-shaped cookies are a treasure, one that warrants all the false starts on Earth.

Location Info

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Jack's Bakery

10515 McFadden Ave.
Garden Grove, CA 92843

Category: Restaurant > Armenian

Region: Garden Grove

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Jack's Bakery,  10515 McFadden Ave, Ste. 107, Garden Grove, (714) 775-6773.