Nuevo Cairo

Colorful food truck brings Mediterranean spirit to Monterey

PHOTOGRPAHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA

A long way from the Nile Delta where he grew up in Egypt, Sam Shokir—owner of Nuevo Cairo Mediterranean Street Food food truck—has finally found his spot.

Located in downtown Monterey at the busy intersection of Abrego and Fremont streets, the truck’s flashy exterior of bright reds, oranges and Kermit the frog green is hard to miss. At first glance, you might even mistake it for a Mexican taco truck.

“Well, the previous owner was Egyptian,” says Shokir, “but the cook was Mexican, so yes the food was mostly tacos. I changed the food to Middle Eastern, but I really want something for everybody because it is not about me. It’s all about the customers.”

Shokir is a big guy with smiley eyes and a bouncy step, always ready to greet you. Strike that. He is thrilled you have arrived at his truck and when he asks your name, he will not forget it. A young man walks up to the truck and pays for his meal from a few weeks ago. “No problem,” says Shokir, gesturing with a flick of his wrist.

He bends his large frame forward to peer through the tiny window to take orders, while a belly dance rhythm of bells, strings and drums comes through the speakers.

Chicken and lamb shawarma (marinated thin slices of meat in cumin, turmeric and paprika stacked on a vertical rotisserie) are available, along with falafels and kebabs, Shokir also offers up Philly cheesesteaks, garlic and curry fries, egg rolls and hotdogs.

Starting at 6am every morning, Shokir prepares his signature falafel—a mixture of ground fava beans and chickpeas, cumin, cilantro and garlic. “I start everything fresh from A to Z,” he says, while demonstrating a special tool he uses to mold each falafel patty. He drops them quickly into hot vegetable oil flavored with pieces of fresh onion (for a richer smell). After five or six minutes, he pulls out the falafels with a strainer, then layers them on a whole pita bread with eight different toppings each cut in perfect dimensions: radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, Greek olives, feta, cucumbers and carrots. Lastly, he drizzles his homemade tzatziki sauce over the entire sandwich, wraps it up into a cone and stuffs it into paper wrapping.

Shokir came to America in 2008, when he was 27 years old, because as he explains coyly, “A woman catches me.”

At first, he alternated between jobs, working the Monterey Farmers Market with a Syrian friend and working for another friend who owned Star 1 Gas in Salinas. Then he worked for Monterey-Salinas Transit, helping those in wheelchairs get on and off the bus to get to medical appointments.

When his father-in-law retired from a job at Soledad Prison after 20 years, he was even handed the position of chaplain of Islamic Services. He was there to counsel and pray with American Muslim prisoners serving life sentences and was put in charge of finding halal food for Muslim inmates, but Shokir lasted just eight months.

Although he grew up working in his father’s restaurants and supermarkets in Alexandria, Egypt, he didn’t consider himself a cook and never thought the food business was for him.

“It was the sound of the electronic gates shutting when alarms went off four or five times a day, signaling some kind of attack or outbreak,” he remembers. “All they gave me was a whistle, so I feared for my life.” He soon found work as a driver: taxis, Uber and eventually Door- Dash.

Although he grew up working in his father’s restaurants and supermarkets in Alexandria, Egypt, he didn’t consider himself a cook and never thought the food business was for him.

It was during the beginning months of COVID, when he started driving for DoorDash, that he saw how much money was spent on food and began to think about opening a café—a place where people could find more affordable food, tastier coffee and pastries, and community.

Trying to open the café took years of work and depleted his funds. “Inshallah,” (as Allah wills it) Shokir recounts, “I came to have coffee early one morning at 5am with a friend who owns this gas station in Monterey. He told me the food truck was available to rent and then ultimately to buy, so I started the very next day!”

Framed prints of a gondola ride in Venice and amaryllis flowers lean against the bottom of the truck, while an outside shelf offers small plastic containers of baba ghanoush, hummus, baklava, toasted sesame and sugar bars and Medjool dates. If you look a little closer, you will even see stacks of paperback copies of the Koran for sale.

Shokir is the decorator, the cook, the buyer, the dishwasher and the marketer. I ask him again if he will tell me the seven secret spices he uses to flavor the lamb, chicken and beef, but instead he grabs a chef’s knife and dazzles me with his skills, transforming a giant head of lettuce into long thin uniform ribbons, not ever looking down at his hands—just like he watched his father do when he was just a kid. He finds his bag of spice powder and shows me three spices written on it: dried mandarin peel, star anise and dried fennel.

“I can’t tell you the other four. Just eat,” he says, “that’s my secret.” Shokir’s dream of opening a brick-and-mortar eatery is still alive and, as of press time, he was preparing to open his Habibi Mediterranean Cafe on Lighthouse Avenue within weeks.

“Hamdullah,” he says, waving his hands in the air. “Hamdullah, Hamdullah, Hamdullah.” With Allah’s blessings. Then he spots one of the crows that makes daily appearances and jumps down from the truck with a few falafel balls to feed it. “You see, even the birds are my friends too!”

NUEVO CAIRO MEDITERRANEAN STREET FOOD
398 Fremont St.
Monterey

HABIBI MEDITERRANEAN CAFE
225 Lighthouse Ave.
Monterey