LAST UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 2026 | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2012
KEY TAKEAWAY
Toum was a Lebanese food truck that roamed Midtown, the Flatiron and the Financial District, named after toum, the whipped Lebanese garlic sauce. In 2012, its $7 chicken shawarma sandwich wrapped real spit-roasted chicken, fries, pickles and garlic sauce in thin bread, a clear step up from processed halal cart meat. Its 2026 status is unverified; for chicken shawarma with toum today, go to Karam in Bay Ridge.
OUR EXPERIENCE (2012 VISIT)
If you enjoy Middle Eastern food, you love a Chicken Shawarma Sandwich, and Toum is a definite step up from the unnamed halal carts that populate most corners of midtown and downtown Manhattan. Yes, they are also a little more expensive, but the difference in price is readily apparent in the food.
We have enjoyed several nice lunches from Toum (which means “garlic” in Arabic), but hadn’t had a chance to try their go-to dish, Chicken Shawarma Sandwich. A couple of times previously, the Chicken Shawarma Sandwich sold out before we got there.
This time it was a cold and rainy day, so there was very little chance of the chicken shawarma selling out before we got there. A sandwich costs $7 and a platter is $10, and we went for the sandwich.
When you see what this Chicken Shawarma Sandwich looks like being made, you’ll see why it sold out before we could order the last two times we were there.
The wrap is made with a bread that’s thinner and more delicate than the pita bread that we’re used to. It may be thinner, but it held everything together without breaking.
The biggest difference between Toum and the halal carts around town is the quality of the meat. Pieces of boneless chicken are slow-roasted on a spit, but it’s not that processed meat you see at most of the halal carts. It’s real chicken, slow-roasted and carved as it cooks. We saw the same real-meat difference at the King of Falafel’s stacked-meat shawarma spits.
Toum also puts a bunch of crispy fries into the wrap, as well as lettuce, garlic sauce, tomato and pickles. The pickles make this different from many of the shawarma sandwiches around town, adding a vinegary zing to the sandwich that we enjoy. The garlic sauce is very nice too.
Toum had a much broader menu than the regular halal carts, with a number of Lebanese specialties like makanek (sausage), kibbeh (kind of like an empanada), and their version of Lebanese pizza.
Back in 2012, Toum moved around between a few different areas, such as 46th St & 6th Ave, 5th Ave around 20th St, and the Financial District, posting its location on its Twitter.
WHAT IS TOUM?
Toum (Arabic for “garlic”) is a Lebanese garlic sauce made by whipping crushed raw garlic with oil, lemon juice and salt into a thick, fluffy emulsion, with no egg or dairy. It’s the classic sauce for chicken shawarma and much sharper than the mayo-based white sauce on most NYC halal carts.
A truck named after a sauce tells you everything: in Lebanese shawarma, the garlic isn’t a condiment, it’s the point.
What People Actually Said About the Truck
Sarah Zilinski caught the truck for Midtown Lunch in August 2012, parked on Fifth Avenue between 20th and 21st, and ordered the same $7 chicken shawarma: fries, tomato, pickle strips, and the garlic sauce the menu also promised with mint. She never found the mint. The dad working the window told her to take shawarma if she wanted rotisserie chicken and shish taouk if she wanted it grilled. She liked the size of the wrap and the toum most, and wrote that the smell stayed in the leftovers all afternoon. A month later, another Midtown Lunch visit to the makanek sandwich ended with a warning: get the toum on the side, unless you hate your coworkers.
The truck kept a small crowd after that. In September 2019, @HG_NYC posted that they had been a fan of @ToumNYC since the truck started, and asked where the new storefront was. Co-founder Christine Chebli had already taken it off the street by then. A May 2020 interview had her back on the truck during Covid, using it to reach customers who could not come to 38th Street. Not every regular was convinced the sauce lived up to the name. In August 2020, @TSarnelle wrote that a truck in NYC literally called Toum still left them craving the toum they had eaten in Michigan.
Where Can You Get Chicken Shawarma with Real Toum Today?
The best verified chicken shawarma with toum in NYC is at Karam, a Lebanese counter at 8519 4th Ave in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; in Queens, Duzan at 24-11 Steinway St in Astoria is the shawarma benchmark of Little Egypt.
On r/nyc in 2019, u/jackdud answered a toum hunt with Karam: best toum and best chicken shawarma sandwich, R train to 86th Street. A March 2025 thread on r/BayridgeBrooklyn named the same counter on 4th between 85th and 86th. One commenter wrote “Karam has amazing Schwarma.” Another said it had been the go-to for more than 30 years. The Infatuation’s 2022 review, by Carina Finn, landed on the same sandwich: flatbread, pickles, and a pungent garlic sauce against the spit meat, with neon pickled turnip in the mixed order. A Bay Ridge native reviewing on Google, Kary Sartan, said they still come back from out of the neighborhood once or twice a year for the chicken shawarma wrap.
Duzan splits the room, which is worth knowing before you ride out to Steinway. A January 2026 r/FoodNYC post called the platter a go-to, with warm pita and sides like couscous, harissa, and amba. One commenter said they almost cried when a kid’s birthday party in Astoria was catered by Duzan. Another said one platter became three dinners. On r/astoria in January 2025, u/Ambitionlessness wrote they go at least once a month and it hits every time. The same thread had the other version: saltier, smaller, and, from u/pmddreal after a few years away, bland enough to lose to a cart. A September 2025 regular who orders chicken shawarma with rice and fries almost nightly thought the chicken had changed for two nights, then tasted normal again.
Our field guide explains why toum beats white sauce on chicken shawarma and which order is worth the subway ride, and every verified falafel and shawarma vendor is mapped in the NYC Falafel & Shawarma Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Toum Truck
Is the Toum food truck still operating?
NewYorkStreetFood.com could not verify that the Toum Lebanese food truck is still operating in 2026. For chicken shawarma with toum, Karam in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is the verified alternative.
What is toum sauce?
Toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce made by whipping crushed raw garlic with oil, lemon juice and salt into a fluffy emulsion, with no egg or dairy. It’s the classic sauce for chicken shawarma.
