Carousel Restaurant Glendale Review: Epic Armenian Mezze & Kebab Feast You Need to Try!

Well, today should be something a little bit different, right? In the heart of downtown Glendale, there's a restaurant that I've been wanting to try for years, and I'm about to dine here this afternoon today. Can't wait, Carousel Restaurant. Maybe, in my opinion, look, I don't know if it's the number one Armenian restaurant in Glendale, there's so many, but someone coming from the East Coast, maybe one of the more famous ones, kind of famous from the Kardashians. They made this one pretty famous when they dined here on their TV show or whatever. There's actually two locations. There's this one near downtown Glendale, and then there's another Carousel Armenian restaurant in Hollywood. We're gonna be dining at the one right here in Glendale. I don't know if this is the original, the older one or not, but I'm excited to go in here and eat. It is lunchtime, and it is busy, busy, busy, because we walked in, the first thing they asked is, do you have reservations? And we said, nope. They said it should be about a 25, 30 minute wait. And I said, you know what? We traveled a long way, that's totally fine. So we'll hang out and wait for a second. I'm really interested to see what Carousel is all about. Is it Western Armenian cuisine, Eastern Armenian cuisine, or is it a mix of the two? We'll find out here once we get inside. Looks cool inside. So I just went down this hallway to use their restaurant. I'm looking at the prints on the walls. Beirut City, Lebanon, et cetera. I think we're in for some very, very, very delightful cuisine today. I'm assuming that means we're gonna be getting a nice taste of Western Armenian food. And I cannot wait. It's very pretty, look at these giant mirrors, light fixtures. This is the foyer entrance when you first come in. Off the street, look at how pretty this is. Wow, look at the chandeliers up here, the decorative. It's almost like mosaics on these mirrors. So while we're waiting to get seated, now's a great time to kind of maybe differentiate for folks that may not be familiar with Armenian cuisine. You can almost break Armenian cuisine down into two halves. You have Western Armenian food, Eastern Armenian food. And the only quick way to break this down real quick is like Eastern Armenian food would be more like, well, number one, it's what you would find in the country of Armenia today, which I guess would be more like Eastern European mixed Armenian food, Russian mixed, just a little bit more Eastern European, whereas like Western Armenian food is more like what you find if you've ever been into Greek restaurants, Turkish restaurants, it's got a little bit of a Middle Eastern flair, Arabic flair to it, a little bit more spiced up, seasoned up type of food, doesn't have that Eastern European taste to it or whatever. So Western is more like Middle Eastern Armenian food, Eastern would be more like Eastern European Armenian food. Maybe that's how you would say it. I probably have both options on the menu here, but I'm hoping for some Western because it seems nowadays it's harder to find Western Armenian than it is to find Eastern Armenian cuisine. Whoa, so here's where we'll be seating, getting our table. That was quick, that was like five minutes. That was great. Okay, so there you go. So this is gonna be more like a mix of Armenian Lebanese, which sounds perfect to me. You know, my dad was Armenian from Lebanon. So this sounds like it's right up my wheelhouse. Excited, beautiful dining room. But all right, gentleman said he's gonna bring over a menu. I can't wait to see what's on the menu and devour the food. Look at the beautiful table settings. Ooh, this is nice. He was saying that the original one is the one in Hollywood from like 1984, I think he said. Pretty big menu. So mezez is like their appetizer, Armenian appetizers. They have manti. You guys can kind of read what that is, but they're meat-filled dumplings, vegan manti, jalapeno salads. Again, like a mix of Armenian Lebanese food. They have bastoma, which is Armenian, like a kind of like Armenian sausage salami. There are so many options on this menu to pick from, but we know what we're gonna do. Susanna's gonna get veal liver kebab, which absolutely sounds amazing. She'll probably get it with french fries or the rice. I'm gonna do a carousel combo, so two skewers. I'll do the chicken breast kebab, and I will do the filet shish kebab. I wanna try their filet mignon. Actually, like, if you look at these family styles, if you can put something together, if it makes sense for you, those are good deals, too, because look at all of what you get. Yeah, they're very good deals, too. I did get a nice, nice tasty glass of Armenian pomegranate juice, so delicious. This is what y'all got, because y'all did like a little family deal. Hummus, I'm not sure what this, what is this one? Pita bread toasted, can I ask what this one is? What is that, Ajay? That's tomato bales with mixed vegetables. Oh, okay, yum, yum, sounds good. That looks like cabbage. That looks like tabbouleh salad, olives, carrots, cheese, and a couple plates of hummus, pomegranate on there. Those are the stuffed grape leaves. Actually, I think I said wrong. I just realized this is, this one here is not hummus. This one is baba ghanoush, or eggplant. Tabbouleh, or parsley salad, looks so good. Let me just take a little taste. Chopped onions, tomato, juice. Very good. That's very good. So all the little appetizers are very, very good. The one thing I haven't tried yet is the cabbage. Shredded cabbage looks great. It is very good. It's like a vinegar, oregano, or something on there, spice. Very good. I did order some regular pita bread with more hummus to come out, too. Their hummus, I already tried it. It's very, very creamy and not too garlicky. Good hummus. So far, everything's good. Ooh, something just came out of the table that looks really, really special. Look at that. Fried kibbehs. Are those cheese pastries? Yes, that's the sausage on the skewers. And then these must be like deep fried cheese pastries. Is that what it is? Oh, it's meat. Look at the sausage. That looks good. You guys are gonna enjoy that. Oh, perfect. Thank you very much. Oh, it's great. What a beautiful table, right? Like the food that's on this table, doesn't it just look pretty? It looks very pretty. The food just can't stop coming out. So here's the hummus. I just ordered more creamy hummus with the chickpeas on top and a nice warm pita. Look at this spread. Look at that table. It's growing. The feast is growing. That's a lot of food on the table. All right, next up, let's try the Armenian sausage. Let's see how Armenian sausage is. Oh, wow. Wow, that is good. That is good. Oh my God. That's very good. You know, in a weird way, Armenian sausage like that, it almost tastes a little bit like a cross between like, I don't know, like beef sausage and a little bit of chorizo, right? Like it's, it's good. It's very, very good. Ooh, strong, hot, spicy, spicy. It's very good. The Armenian sojouk. Very good. This is a real treat today. So next thing we're going to try in this smorgasbord of wonderful Armenian cuisine, this, which has already been cut off of that, I believe they call this a cheese bed egg. Not the type of cheese bed egg I'm used to having. It's a little bit different, but it's looks like cheese in the dough. Almost just like an egg roll. Doesn't it look like an egg roll wrapper or something? Anyway, let's see what it's made of. Oh man. Wow, that is good. This is delicious. That's very good. Even my child is enjoying that. More food is coming. So there's a, that's lulay kebab on there. Chicken breast kebab. And filet mignon kebab with the onions, pita bread with the tomato sauce on it. And then you've got the rice, Armenian pilaf, and the bulgur rice. Look at that. That's a deal. This was 40 bucks a person, right? For what y'all did. So all those sides, that's a lot. That's not bad at all. That's a good deal. You know what? If you come in here, maybe the way to go is to do the, one of those little combo deals, family deals. Get all of this appetizers, the meze, along with your little nice tray of kebab meat. And you get to sample a little bit of everything. Me and Susanna didn't do that. We ordered separate shish kebabs. I don't even know how much kebab is going to be there. But so far, everything is really, really good. More food is arriving at the table. Let's see. That's the chicken, that's hers, the liver. Liver shish kebab. Ooh. Look at that. The zucchini, the carrots, the peppers, and the tomatoes. Yes. Thank you. This big? Yeah, that'll be great. Thank you so much. Listen, honey, you can eat what you want now. We'll let her know. And whatever you don't eat, daddy will take it and put it in the refrigerator, okay? I won't eat it. You won't? But it looks so good, honey. Look at these chunks of kebab and rice. This is what I got. This is the ground chicken, and then I got the beef filet with the Armenian rice. This is the onions, the grilled tomatoes, pita bread with the tomato sauce. Looks yummy. So let's try this kebab. Probably just gonna hold it up. That's the ground chicken kebab. It looks really good. Let me cut a little piece with a fork. Oh, I can't wait for this. That's perfect. Perfect chicken shish kebab. Now, this is the filet, beef kebab filet. Look at that. I can even cut it with a fork, too. Look how nice and lean that is. Cuts perfectly with a fork. Didn't even need a knife. Oh, man. Oh, that's a treat. The beef kebab is a real treat. Are you making a video for daddy? No, I'm just, I will make a video. Let me just try myself. Thank you. Amazing. Let me try your chicken. Honey, you don't wanna try these chunks of chicken? Look at these chunks. Chicken. Great. This is very good. I'm gonna try the pilaf right now. Something a little hard to get. It's good. Oh, yeah. Very good rice. My girl loves her rice. All right, so I'm gonna have this pita bread with the tomato sauce on it, and I'm gonna scoop up a piece of this chicken shish kebab with it. I can't overstate how tasty this is. Wow. Oh, man. That's the real deal chicken kebab. You're in LA, you're in the Glendale area, Carousel is definitely 100% worth stopping at and feasting on some amazing, amazing Armenian flavorful cuisine, this is a real treat. Fantastic. Can I taste a little small piece of liver? Just a small piece. There we go, veal liver. Let's try the veal liver. It's good, it's very good veal liver. That's like a Middle Eastern spice. Something else that came out to the table is something called manti, which is like meat dumplings in a yogurt sauce. Meat dumplings in a yogurt sauce with a spice. That's delicious, that's delicious. Maybe went a little overboard with the amount of lunch that we've got on this table today, but honestly, it is fantastic. Great spread. All righty, well, I'm gonna close this video then by, I just wanna say like, everything was phenomenal. The food was fantastic. Service, amazing. Locations, great. Dining room, beautiful. But really like, every single thing brought out to this table today that we feasted on, it was great. Tasted awesome. This is just a real treat. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. We're here for a while, so I'm sure we'll come back and maybe we'll come back for dinner. But this was just really, really nice. Ah, this is the dessert menu. Ooh, I mean, look at all these desserts. Look at all of these desserts to pick from. Oh my gosh, what is this one? Look at like the cream, like that thing with the raspberry on top or strawberry on top. Here, go ahead, honey. Look at the dessert. But anyway, fantastic meal. Enjoyed it thoroughly. If you're in Southern California, Glendale, LA area, you wanna try some authentic, real deal Armenian food and Middle Eastern food, go to Carousel. They got two locations, Glendale and in Hollywood. So you'll enjoy it. They'll thank me later. Have a great one. See you guys on the next video. Like, share, subscribe. Thank you.