Their signature Egyptian sandwiches with a North American touch will have you delightfully surprised!
By: Kaden Nanji
This article is part of CanCulture’s food review series, where our writers explore some of the best food finds across the nation.
Take everything you think you know about sandwiches and toss it out the window, for Tut’s Egyptian Street Food will change your notion of a sandwich forever. Tut’s is open every day of the week until 12 a.m., and Fridays and Saturdays until 3 a.m., making it a great restaurant to visit for your late-night cravings. I decided to try out Tut’s for dinner after a friend recommended it to me.
Tut’s is an Egyptian street food spot located at 567 King St. W. which specializes in different types of sandwiches that you would find in Egypt — but with a North American twist. One great example of this is the soguk (sausage) sandwich, where Tut’s takes a traditional Middle Eastern sausage and combines it with North American flavours, such as mustard, to give it a unique taste.
Let me note here that, more than anything, Tut’s is an absolutely unique restaurant. Its interior design is stunning: one of the walls is lined with a neon board featuring Egyptian symbols, another wall has a colourful graffiti display of hieroglyphics and King Tut’s sarcophagus, and the surroundings of the stairs leading down to the bathrooms are designed to look like the inside of a tomb. Furthermore, the restaurant has a rustic design, with exposed pipes (in an aesthetically pleasant way) and a wooden ceiling.
Now, let’s take a look at the food. Tut’s specializes in sandwiches. And in order to let you know the optimal meal here, I tried four different flavours. Tut’s offers each sandwich — which are fairly small but filling — for $5. However, I recommend going with a combo: the Tut’s Combo ($12.50) contains two sandwiches, a side and a drink, or the Tut’s Plus Combo ($19.50) which contains four sandwiches, a side and a drink. Both of these combos are innovatively served in a box, which matches the restaurant’s street food theme.
The four sandwiches that I tried were the ferakh (chicken), soguk (sausage), kofta (beef) and kebda (beef liver). I was recommended the first three dishes by the server, and I decided to be a little adventurous and try the kebda as my fourth. For my side, I chose to try the fries with dukkah – an Egyptian spice blend. The server also recommended I try the tomeyya (garlic sauce). Overall, for the value of the food and for the experience itself, the prices are not exorbitant.
Let’s start off with the ferakh, which is a combination of grilled chicken, onion and coriander, served with garlic sauce on a bun made on-site. In fact, all of the buns in the restaurant are baked in-house. The buns are light, airy and help transcend the flavours of the fillings. Overall, the ferakh sandwich was delightful; the grilled onions and coriander helped enrich the taste of the perfectly seasoned chicken. Also, the garlic sauce went along perfectly with chicken, without overpowering the taste.
The second sandwich I tried was the soguk, which is a grilled beef sausage with caramelized onions, sumac and mustard on top. The sausage was cooked well and contained hints of different Middle Eastern spices. The strong mustard balanced the taste of the sausage, while the caramelized onions provided some sweetness. However, one thing that I did not like was the sumac in the sandwich. This is a Middle Eastern spice that has a slightly acidic and fruity taste; unfortunately, I do not think that the use of sumac in the sausage was a good choice as it created a strange contrast between the flavours. Overall, the sandwich wasn’t the best, but it was far from a bad dish.
The next sandwich, kofta, was my favourite. It consisted of kofta (grilled minced beef with Middle Eastern spices), pickles, parsley and tahini (a sauce made of sesame seeds). The kofta was incredibly tender and contained an abundance of aromatic spices. Moreover, the tahini and pickles helped elevate the taste of the kofta while not overpowering the overall sandwich. This dish was incredibly simple, relying on more complex spices rather than complex ingredients — which made it my favourite.
For my final sandwich, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try the kebda sandwich, which is pan-fried beef liver with green chili peppers, tahini sauce and a lime wedge. I have never tried beef liver before, and honestly, upon looking at the dish, I was a little grossed out. But I shook that thought out of my head and dug in… and boy am I glad that I tried this sandwich!
The beef liver has an earthy flavour that creates a flavourful punch in one bite when paired with the green peppers and tahini sauce, and the acidity of the lime does wonders to the dish. However, I felt that there was still something missing from the beef, so I used my culinary thinking skills and put some garlic sauce on the sandwich. This small addition to the dish helped elevate its flavour profile entirely and made it even more delicious.
However, my favourite dish probably wasn’t even the sandwiches, but the fries with dukkah. Dukkah is an Egyptian blend of spices and nuts, and it made the fries absolutely delicious and flavourful. They were even better when dipped into the garlic sauce (tomeyya), which is probably one of the best garlic sauces that I have ever had.
In terms of recommendations, I would have to give my nod to the Tut’s Combo, as it contains just enough to satisfy your hunger without being excessive. But if you are starving, the Tut’s Plus Combo is the way to go. For the sandwiches, first of all, I would recommend the kofta (beef) as it was absolutely delicious. Secondly, I would recommend either the ferakh (chicken) or the kebda (beef liver.) If you are feeling a bit more adventurous, go with the kebda, but if you want to play it safe, the ferakh awaits. There are vegetarian options as well, which I, unfortunately, did not get to try. However, based on customer reviews, the taameyya, a fried falafel sandwich, seems like a pretty tasty option.
I like to end off all my articles with my restaurant rating scale, which contains six different categories: taste, presentation, service, ambience, price and creativity. Each of these categories will be ranked from 1 to 10 on the scale. For more details on the restaurant rating scale, check out the end of my last article, a review of Hong Shing.
- Taste: 8.6/10
- Presentation: 9/10
- Service: 7.5/10
- Ambience: 9.1/10
- Price: 8.1/10
- Creativity: 9/10
