10,000 pieces of Middle Eastern monti are handmade daily at LA's Monta Factory

• The Monta Factory in Los Angeles makes over 10,000 tiny, handmade monti a day.
• Monta or monti can be found on the menu at various Middle Eastern restaurants, and this is how the Egiazaryan family makes it baked on their Armenian roots.
• The dish consists of tiny marinated ground beef stuffed inside a boat-shaped dough shell then oven baked.
• It's enjoyed with tomato sauce, garlic cream, or in a soup form.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: Los Angeles is home to the largest Armenian community in the U.S. So, it's no surprise you can find some of the most delicious Armenian food here. This family-run restaurant has been making manti together for 16 years. Baking thousands of the meat filled dumplings a day. And they hope to pass the tradition down to the next generation. You can find manta or manti on the menu at various Middle Eastern restaurants.

Sarkes Egiazaryan: This is the Armenian version. This is what I've grown up eating. This is how we've made it my entire life, but the dish itself it's so ancient. It's so traditional that I always say it's a Middle Eastern European dish, because you'll have a different version in Greece, a different version in Lebanon, a different version in Turkey, a different version in Armenia, same dish, different variations.

Sarkes: We used to do together 2,800. That was just when we started together. So now I can only, I can't-
Evelina Egiazaryan: Don't count anymore.
Sarkes: At this point it's just above the 10,000 daily, easily. Yeah.

Sarkes: We use a ground beef and it's just marinated with a simple blend of herbs and spices. In each square you put a little pinch of beef that gets folded, as you can see my mother doing here. She's a pro at everything, at all steps. So, I do what she doesn't want to do in that time. And with today it's putting in the meat so she can fold. And other days it'll be folding so she can put the meat in, whichever one she prefers. When we first started it was her and I side-by-side, working for like six hours a day, making manta, and then working another eight hours running the shop. And that's where I learned. I used to be so slow in this And now I race my mom.

Narrator: Each Manta is tightly packed into a tray, frozen to keep fresh and oven-baked when ordered.

Sarkes: So, now that they come out of the oven, they'll be topped off in your choice of tomato, tomato, hot and spicy. Go ahead and hit it with a little bit of blend of herbs and spices. And last but not least, give it a nice dazzle of the garlic cream and our signature Manta "M" Bam.

Sarkes: Best part about the food is it's preference. So you can have them soft, you can have them crispy. These ones, the edges are nice and crispy. It's been drizzled with the sauce. You got a nice crunch on the edges but the inside is nice and soft where the beef is. And then as soon as you bite into that shell, you get the explosion of beef flavor
Evelina: The mint and sumac and red pepper gives big flavor on top of it. It's special. I don't know. It's good. You will try. And you will see how good it is.

Sarkes: So you're not missing -

Sarkes: Hey! Peekaboo. And here's our future generation that we were speaking of that we definitely want them to learn and know what this tradition is. And here's number two, see? And this is my sister right here.
Francine: It's really important for me, for the kids to learn these traditions growing up in diaspora America, Los Angeles, they're gonna learn the culture of LA but I want them to learn traditions and family. And you know what their grandmothers and ancestors cooked Its important to keep our culture-

- Hello

Narrator: Evelina and her husband Grant left Armenia in the early '90s and started the family business in downtown LA only to have their doors close a few months later. Then 16 years ago, the family decided to continue with the monta dream and open a small 200-square-foot shop in Pasadena where Grant and Sarkes usually work and later expanded to Glendale.

Sarkes: My great-grandparents were from Erzincan, Kars, Adana, Sis, and Van. My grandparents after the events of 1915 migrated outside of Armenia and they went to Lebanon, France, and Romania. And then when it all came back together all those collective styles of cooking and those flavors and all those traditions came together. As our family's recipes.
Evelina: When I was growing up, I had two grandma, one grandma was making open ones. The other one closed ones. I saw that. Maybe they were in different regions. But beside my two grandmas, I had my maternal grandfather's cousin from whom I learned how to open the dough and how to make all the food. How to make the syrups, how to make the fillings. And we call her Beebee. My father made this in Armenia from a walnut tree. And my mom is keeping the spice the mint and sumac and red pepper in there. This piece we have it. So we are keeping like a treasure. These are treasure for me.

Narrator: Evelina's grandchildren are often at the shop with their family, learning how to make the dish themselves.

Evelina: Now, take out the dough. Oh, Madlene, it's really nice. It's like a treasure for them. It's memory I know now they change a lot. They don't pay attention to the memories, but for me, it's important. I don't know.