The Riverside Press-Enterprise
ARDI’S ORGANICS
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ended up homeless for nearly a year.
“I ended up couch surfing a lot at friends’ houses,” he said.
He eventually got back into the business, working as a waiter at Marmalade Cafe in Malibu for about a decade before he finally decided to jump into the fast food business. But he wanted to approach things differently this time.
Among the most noticeable things that set Ardi’s Organics apart from its fast food peers are the buns.
They’re soft, warm, fluffy as clouds and made in-house daily.
“We created the recipe for our own custom hamburger buns,” he said. “We have no oil in our hamburger buns; we make them from scratch here; they’re 100% vegan.”
Meanwhile, the beef patties are thin with a slightly charred rim, reminiscent of a smash burger.
“It’s an in-between type of smash burger,” he explained. “The beef is so rich that even though the patty looks small and the hamburger looks small, it’s such a well-rounded, naturally put together burger that everything about it is real and delicious.”
The sweet pea burger is Ardi’s offering to those seeking a vegan burger option, eschewing the rice, mushrooms or corn found in many vegetable patties.
“I wanted to do something different, so one night it came to me to create a yam, chickpea, red and yellow bell pepper patty with my own seasonings in it,” he said. “It’s just very different from anything else, and with the bun, it becomes a vegan burger.”
And the sweet yam cubes were a late addition to the menu.
“That came because I didn’t want to do just another french fry,” he said. “We started playing with the yam and we created it and infused it with maple syrup, put some sea salt, and then we bake it and then we lightly fry them in organic sunflower oil.”
While his two other restaurants didn’t pan out, Entezam thinks he’s finally found his real calling in slinging fast food his own way.
“I’m giving you the best quality food I can and I’m hand-making everything,” he said.