The Brief

Editor's note: This story was first published in early 2020. It has been updated, refreshed and republished to reflect new locations and other details for our fellow falafel lovers. If we missed your favorite place to get falafel in and around L.A., let us know and we may include it.

Tell your friends you're craving falafel and you'll probably get a shrug.

Not that people actively dislike the crusty brown orbs, but they are about as far from a feast for the eyes as you can get, especially lined up next to glistening shish kabobs kissed by flame, crisp bits of shawarma sliced straight from a spit or lule logs oozing with rivulets of rendered fat.

That doesn't mean falafel is bad, just underappreciated. Let's change that.

Originating in the Middle East — probably Egypt although no one knows for sure — "falafel is as contentious as the region itself," History Today says. While multiple cultures claim invention or ownership of the spiced chickpea fritter, falafel's popularity has spread far beyond its likely geographic beginnings.

Crunchy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside, it's become a ubiquitous street food throughout the Mediterranean, Europe and North Africa, and a popular snack around the world. And, of course, in L.A.

From Van Nuys to downtown, from Garden Grove to Glendale to Melrose, here are some of our favorite places to find it:

Sababa Falafel Shop

When’s the last time you went into a restaurant and got a free sample? Well, when you make it to the front of the line at Sababa Falafel Shop in Garden Grove — and is there ever not a line? — you’re greeted by an exceptionally friendly server who will dole out samples of fresh, piping hot falafel balls. Prepare to be transported: These morsels are fluffy, pillowy, and almost juicy. (How is that even possible? Well, they are.) And an order of straight up falafel is served in a hand-held paper bag, to make the scarfing down easier. LAist supporter Nancy Serag tipped us off to this place, saying no falafel list is complete unless it includes Sababa. "The taste is just phenomenal," she said, "The best I've ever had." She lives in Irvine and says a drive north to Sababa’s, on the southern edge of Orange County's Little Arabia, is well worth the traffic. You can get the falafel served up many different ways — salad with your choice of an array of toppings, pita sandwich, or a freshly baked-to-order Jerusalem baguette. Yep, the baguettes are finished off while you wait, so it does require a bit more time. Totally worth it.

Dune

Almost no one in recent memory has done as much to elevate the region's falafel consciousness as the folks behind Dune. When they opened in a sunny, stylish shoebox on Glendale Boulevard back in 2015, they flipped falafel from an afterthought to the focus, putting it at the top of the menu. Their falafel is stupendous, craggy and rough on the outside with a bright green interior like Griffith Park on a rainy spring day, moist but not mushy and bursting with herbs. The stretchy, toasted-to-order flatbreads and immaculate renditions of condiments like zhug, a fiery green chile and parsley-based hot sauce, and amba, a salty pickled mango sauce, make an excellent overall meal. They've powered Dune to mini-chain status, with an additional location in downtown L.A. and, if we're lucky, more to come.

Cairo Restaurant & Cafe

You know you're enjoying the falafel at Cairo's in Anaheim when you see the tell-tale sesame seed crust that adorns their chickpea fritters. This Little Arabia eatery is known for its authentic, homemade Egyptian food and their Facebook page is filled with comments from diners expressing their gratitute for it, such as: "Great Authentic Egyptian Food, My only complaint is that i wish it was close by! Highly recommended!" Eating at Cairo is "like you are back home," said another. But the falafals, said a fan, are "best best best. Cooked to perfection. The falafel appetizer plate could easily double as a lunch deal: It serves up fritters with a side of tahini sauce along with cucumbers and tomatoes, $7.99.

Joe's Falafel

Joe's Falafel feels out of the way, hiding in the corner of a strip mall on a flyby section of Cahuenga Boulevard near Universal City. It's not quite Hollywood, not quite the Valley. But the falafel, rounded at the bottom with a protruding tip like a deep-fried muffin, is worth the trip from just about anywhere. It doesn't hurt that they bake fantastic lafa and pita to order, make their own harissa and handle loads of large group pickup orders, to the delight of production assistants on both sides of the hill.

Kareem's Falafel

Kareem's Falafel is one of the OG restaurants in Little Arabia, and now has another South Coast location. The menu proudly plays with flavors — cilantro hummus, chipotle sauce, the Quinoa Reeves (get it?) salad bowl spiked with cranberries and sunflower seeds. But as Eater reported, there is one sacred menu item: The falafel. Kareem Hawari told the outlet that his dad's final words before he died, were: "Don't change my recipe." Hawari is keeping that promise, and then some. There is now a falafal burger on the menu, and Kareem's even sells frozen falafals for those who can never tell when a craving will strike. "Best falafel in California!!" says one fan.

B'ivrit

B'ivrit has excellent pickled veggies, silky hummus and an intriguing meat-free version of arayes, a stuffed-then-griddled pita pocket that's like a crunchwrap. But you're here for the falafel, in all three colors — stained red with paprika and harissa, yellow with turmeric or the classic herbaceous green. Order a falafel sandwich and get two of each kind tucked into two split pieces of pita and topped with tahini, finely chopped Israeli salad and cabbage slaw. A hit of spice here and a snap of turmeric there, the contrasting falafel flavors work together to keep each bite interesting. All together, it makes an excellent foil for whatever alcohol you consume. B'ivrit was a one-woman pop-up operation long enough to generate a devoted following. Amit Sidi has since made a home for her restaurant concept — and headlines — in Cypress Park.

Falafel Arax

Falafel Arax is an East Hollywood institution and a city-wide legend. It's a simple spot, powered by a steady stream of lunchtime takeout orders, the four tables often occupied by people waiting for containers of falafel or tongue sandwiches. Like the restaurant itself, the falafel is no-frills. Their rough-edged saucers are the same brown, inside and out. Don't let their unrefined appearance fool you. They are perfect. Crisp on the outside and impossibly light inside, like a deep-fried dirigible laced with garlic and cumin, they're a textbook example of simple food prepared with exceptional technique.

Ta-eem

The first thing that hits you when you get an order from Ta-eem is the amount of food you receive. Even if you opt for a pita sandwich, the smallest unit of measure, you receive five pieces of falafel stuffed into an oversized pocket of bread. You'll also get a plate heaped with thick-sliced pickles and a saucer split 50/50 between their forest green zhug and bright red harissa, both housemade. But you don't come here to the heart of Melrose for quantity alone. The falafel is bright and punchy, a vivid green inside, denser than some but still moist. When you pile on sauces, pickles and vegetables then wrap it in fresh, fluffy pita, it makes an excellent and filling lunch. (Just fyi, Ta-eem used to be a stand-alone restaurant on Melrose. Ta-eem now serves up its fare through the Kosher Madness "ghost kitchen" on Pico, with a new La Brea location coming soon.)

Open Sesame

Unlike most falafel joints, Open Sesame is a table-service restaurant with a heated patio overlooking busy Beverly Boulevard near the Grove. (At the Long Beach location, that patio looks out onto busy 2nd Street.) Open Sesame is fancier than any other spot on this list, with décor and vibes to match. The falafel is dark, dense and fried hard so its heft runs right up to the border of stodginess, but it is seasoned aggressively enough to make up for the excess weight. These chickpea fritters will crack you across the nose and linger on your palate, in a good way. And the relative poshness of the spot has one crucial advantage — Open Sesame serves beer. Nothing pairs so well with falafel as a happy hour bottle of malty Lebanese lager.

Kobee Factory

The place is named for Kobee, the beef-and-bulgur specialty that comes either fried or grilled, but Kobee Factory also makes a mean falafel. The light brown pucks arrive with a divot in the middle, sprinkled with sesame seeds and lightly fried so the batter forms delicate tendrils around the outside, creating a bird's nest so airy you hardly notice as you inhale a plateful of the toasty brown delicacies. They are earthy and salty, pairing well with the minty tzatziki and smooth hummus.

Hollywood Falafel

When you walk up to the Hollywood Falafel food truck for the first time, owner Yaniv Cohen is ready with his line: "You're so lucky, I would pay a million dollars to taste this falafel for the first time again." His falafel, he'll tell you, is unique in Los Angeles: The balls are smaller, lighter and loosely packed, yellow inside and generously spiced with a lingering smack of heat. It's a treat to encounter a hyper-specific take on a familiar food, particularly from a noteworthy street food city. A million dollars is a lot of money but Cohen makes an argument for it with his fantastic bag of falafel that he serves up in Valley Village.

The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.

What's the impact to coverage?

L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.

The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.

What's the impact to health-care providers?

More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.

The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.

What are proposals to help?

The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.

L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.

California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.

The California Department of Insurance announced Monday that it has taken the first step in the process to bring the allegations to a public hearing before an administrative judge. That could result in the state’s largest home insurer paying up to about $4 million in penalties, and suspension of its license for up to a year, meaning it could not write new policies in California during that time.

“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.

The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims — out of more than 11,000 filed with State Farm in response to last year’s fires — and found hundreds of violations in more than half them. Attorneys for the state called it a “troubling pattern” in their filing.

State Farm denied the allegations and called the state’s move “politically motivated” in a lengthy statement posted to its website.

Every Fire Survivors Network, a coalition representing thousands of L.A. fire survivors, pressured the state for months to investigate State Farm’s handling of wildfire claims.

Joy Chen, who co-founded the group after her home was damaged in the Eaton Fire, said the state’s action is far from enough.

“It’s just very disappointing to see our regulator issue a report that shows his own failures over the last 16 months,” she told LAist.

Only a few dozen homes have been rebuilt so far in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades since the fires destroyed more than 16,000 buildings, mostly homes, in those communities and nearby areas.

A survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels last year found that nearly three-quarters of L.A. fire survivors reported delays, denials and low payouts of their claims across all insurers.

“What we need is for all State Farm contracts to be enforced so that Los Angeles families can have the money that we need to move forward with getting back home,” Chen said.

The state’s alleged violations carry a fine of up to $5,000, and up to $10,000 if the violations are found to be willful. The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a possible penalty.

The Insurance Department said people with homeowners policies from any insurer can report problems with their claims at insurance.ca.gov or by calling (800) 927-4357.

Yes, you could put a screen in your backyard and call up your friends to watch a particularly compelling World Cup game after the tournament begins June 12.

But FIFA is turning each game into a public celebration, sponsoring 10 outdoor Fan Zone watch parties with large viewing screens across L.A. County through the final on July 19.

Details were released on Monday, including locations, dates and prices.

The Fan Zones open in a staggered schedule from one day to four days each, starting with the Original Farmers Market on June 18 - 21, and then popping up across the region until the glorious end on July 19 in downtown Burbank.

Ticket prices range from free (City of Downey, Union Station L.A., “Magic” Johnson Park, Whittier Narrows) to over $300 for a VIP experience with a viewing lounge and a concert at the downtown Burbank Fan Zone on the day of the World Cup final match on July 19.

Fan Zone kick off

At the first Fan Zone, at The Original Farmers Market from June 18 for four days, entry will cost you $5 per day or $17 for all four days. Kids age 3 and under are free. (FIFA says the zones are family friendly).

You’ll be able to see four matches there each of the four days, including Mexico vs. South Korea on June 18 at 6 p.m. and USA vs. Australia on June 19 at noon.

You won’t have to squint to find your favorite player or catch the goals. The Farmer’s Market will include a 30-foot viewing screen as well as a 15-foot secondary screen to watch the games. There will be beer gardens, and you can purchase food from the Market's dozens of establishments.

Other Fan Zones

The West Harbor L.A. Fan Zone will give people an opportunity to experience the newest major development along the San Pedro waterfront, a 42-acre waterfront district that’s been years in the making.

The Union Station L.A. Fan Zone on June 25 is free and includes match viewing, music, food, and immersive fan experiences, featuring live DJs.

The final Fan Zone opens July 18 and 19 in downtown Burbank for the World Cup’s last two matches. FIFA says it’ll include “an adjacent international street fair filled with global flavors and cultural experiences.” Tickets range from $25 to over $300

The full list of the Fan Zones is here.

This of course, isn’t the only opportunity to watch World Cup matches with groups of people in SoCal. The city of L.A. will host its own watch parties.

Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.

Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved.

Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.

All asylum seekers are disqualified from federal financial aid. The few who qualify for California’s state aid may never know their options, or face hurdles in obtaining it due to a patchwork of financial aid processes.

The state’s higher education systems are not mandated to track asylum seekers, making state budget impacts nearly unquantifiable during legislative attempts to expand financial aid eligibility.

“I only see them struggling,” said Eric Cline, social services program director at OASIS Legal Services, which supports LGBTQ+ asylum seekers across the Bay Area and Central Valley. “I’m always surprised (when) a few clients tell me 'I just graduated from college.’ I think, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’”

Policy changes stoke uncertainty for asylum seekers

Asylum seeking is one of the least-protected immigration statuses in the U.S. Asylum seekers, who’ve fled their home countries fearing persecution and are asking the U.S. for protection, differ from refugees, whose status is granted before they enter the country. Asylum seekers apply upon arriving in the U.S.

Applicants can stay as their cases remain pending for years, though experts say the Trump administration is expediting deportations for numerous asylum seekers and ending cases before they can receive a full hearing.

As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time.

The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries. In the San Francisco immigration court system, which is popular among asylum seekers due to higher acceptance rates, a combination of firings by the Trump administration, retirements and relocations whittled the 21 immigration judges to two, according to reporting in Mission Local. Left behind is a caseload of nearly 119,000 immigration cases, the highest of any immigration court in California.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” also established new fees for asylum seekers, placing additional pressure on an already low-income population. Applicants must now pay an initial $100 application fee plus $100 per year while their case is pending, $550 for a work permit, and $745 each year to renew the permit. In addition, a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would effectively end the ability of asylum seekers to obtain work permits at all.

As they await a decision, asylum seekers are excluded from federal aid and some state financial aid programs, including Cal Grants under California law.

For one asylum seeker, Carol, being ineligible for financial aid meant she had to take time off from school to work to make ends meet. CalMatters is not using her full name because she fears speaking publicly may jeopardize her asylum case.

Carol did speak before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in 2023 urging lawmakers to pass AB 888, which would have expanded Cal Grant eligibility to certain asylum seekers. The bill ultimately did not pass.

She said she arrived in the United States at 17 and had spent more than six years waiting for her case to move through immigration courts, a period during which she said she was ineligible for financial aid.

“I’ve had to delay my educational journey several times, including going part-time and even taking a semester off from school to work,” Carol told lawmakers.

Without access to aid, she said she experienced homelessness, couch surfing and at one point slept on a mattress topper on a hardwood floor because she could not afford a bed. She worked multiple jobs at a time, skipped meals and attended class without the required course materials.

Her story, she said, was not new. Carol told the committee that four years earlier her brother had testified with a nearly identical experience on behalf of a previous bill that was ultimately vetoed, a cycle she argued could have been prevented.

“Had California taken action then, I wouldn’t have had to face the harrowing experiences that I shared with you today,” she said.

Despite the barriers, Carol graduated from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a caseworker with the International Rescue Committee, helping resettle refugees and asylum seekers. She told lawmakers she hopes to pursue a law degree and become an international human rights attorney.

The narrow path to college aid for asylum-seeking students

Many asylum seekers arrive eager to continue studies they began abroad, but quickly run into what Cline calls “a brick wall."

“All of our clients are low-income … they’re almost never eligible for generalized financial aid,” he said. “When you take away the financial aid aspect, it makes (college) pretty inaccessible.”

For California residents, annual undergraduate tuition is $15,588 at the University of California, $6,838 at the California State University and about $1,380 for 30 units at a community college. Students classified as non-residents — including some asylum seekers before establishing residency — can pay $54,858 at a University of California, about $20,968 at a Cal State before campus-based fees, and roughly $10,140 to $13,560 for 30 units at a community college, depending on the district. These figures do not include campus-based fees, housing or living expenses.

Even when students do manage to establish residency, the cost is still steep. For the many asylum seekers who arrive in the United States as adults, they may not have attended a California school previously, barring them from qualifying for state financial aid.

AB 540, the 2001 law that exempts undocumented students from paying non-resident tuition, only applies if the student attended a California high school or community college for three years.

Those who qualify through AB 540 can fill out the California Dream Act Application for state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, university system-specific grants, state loans, and the state’s middle class scholarship.

The application process can still be confusing for asylum seekers whose status is not fully accounted for in the design of the application. For example, asylum seekers often have Social Security numbers for work authorization, but affirming so while answering the financial aid pre-screening questions leads to undetermined eligibility because the questions don’t take into account the nuances of applying as an asylum seeker.

Asylum seekers often require extra help from financial aid counselors, but even counselors may not know how to help navigate eligibility rules. Students often wind up seeking help from undocumented student resource centers on public campuses, which are designed to help students who lack legal residency and those from mixed-status families find aid and academic support.

Kaveena Singh, the director of immigration legal services at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants, noted that she herself has written letters to financial aid offices to help explain the in-between nature of the few asylum-seeking students she has served.

As an asylum-seeking student in his mid-20s, L. ended up qualifying for state financial aid through AB 540. However, he misunderstood for six years exactly what aid he qualified for. L. wished to withhold his name and the names of the institutions he’s attended for fear of negative impacts on his pending asylum case.

Initially, community college didn’t cost him anything — but when he transferred to a large four-year university, the cost of college soared. He went to his university's financial aid office for help so often that all the staff there knew his name. It was a "big relief” when he was finally able to successfully fill out the California Dream Act Application, and obtain financial aid for his summer and fall quarters.

L.'s asylum case has been pending for nine years. He, his dad, mom and younger brother arrived in the United States in the winter of 2016, claiming asylum under fear of political retribution. His father organized political assemblies in China, and his mother was forced to have an abortion under the one-child policy.

“I just wish I could go home and visit family and friends and catch up for a good few weeks in the summer here and there to reconnect with my past,” L. said. “It's like there's two separate lives, like two entities being artificially cut.”

L. worked throughout high school and college, and worried about affording school.

Most days, the combination of family trauma and the limbo of waiting for his case means L. survives through “constant compartmentalization.”

In the meantime, he tries to carry on — he studies politics, and is interested in international relations and human rights.

"As rough as all that's happened, the silver lining is that one day hopefully I get a passport and a green card," L. said. "To help other people avoid such a hassle will be just as fulfilling for me."

Previous legislative efforts have failed

Legislative bills to extend state financial aid eligibility to asylum-seeking students have been introduced at least twice in recent years but have failed.

One attempt came in 2019, when Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, introduced SB 296, a bill that would have extended Cal Grant eligibility to students with pending asylum applications. The measure passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that it would "impose costs on the General Fund that must be weighed in the annual budget process."

“That was frustrating, but I understood it,” Allen told CalMatters. “The real issue is that we don’t have good data. Our schools don’t track asylum seekers, so we can’t easily calculate the cost.”

UC data on asylum-seeking students is protected due to privacy policies, according to Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson. The Cal State system reports it has less than 500 students with "asylum status," which includes both those who have an asylum granted and asylum seekers, according to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. The numbers are self-reported during the admissions process.

In spring 2025, 13,507 students self-identified as “refugee/asylee” across the California Community Colleges — up from 11,537 the prior semester — per the CCC DataMart. The data does not include a category for just asylum seekers. Students can self-identify their immigration status while applying, but asylum seekers are not specifically tracked, according to the college system’s spokesperson Melissa Villarin.

Four years after SB 296 failed, Democrat Sabrina Cervantes — then representing Riverside in the Assembly and now as a state senator — revived the proposal through AB 888, introduced in 2023. Like Allen’s earlier bill, AB 888 sought to make Cal Grants accessible to students with pending asylum applications by creating a direct eligibility pathway outside the AB 540 residency requirements. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously but was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee last September, effectively ending its chances for the year.

Cervantes declined an interview with CalMatters. “My Assembly Bill 888 would have created a new pathway for pending asylum seekers in California to apply for Cal Grant financial aid in pursuit of their higher education,” Cervantes wrote in a statement.

Newsom’s office declined to say whether he would support a future version of the proposal, pointing instead to his brief 2019 veto message.

“There’s nervousness around anything that involves new expenses," Allen said. “... We’re going to have to spend some time seeing what information we can get with regards to better data to get better estimated costs. I think that will help to better inform the conversation."

Andrea Baltodano and Chrissa Olson are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.