Homemade Falafel with a Twist

Israeli Salad

Tonight for dinner, I had two friends over (one being my roommate) and made falafel. My roommate gotmean ebelskiver pan as a gift, and had tried making falafel in it once before. My family thought it turned out fairly well, and my roommate wanted to try it. So I planned falafel for dinner, but I decided not to make the traditional style that I do on most occasions. I started yesterday making some Israeli salad. To do this, I finely diced red and yellow bell pepper, red onion, tomato, cucumber, pasrley, mint, and very finely diced four cloves of garlic and three habanero peppers. I added the zest and juice of a lemon, a touch of olive oil, and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Miso Tahini Hummus

Next I made a large batch of the hummus that I planned to put in the pitas. I made extra so that we could have some during the day and so that there would be leftovers for later snacking. I started with rinsed and drained canned chickpeas in a food processor. I added a couple tablespoons each of olive oil and tahini, miso, sriracha, salt, and enough water to reach the smooth consistency I was looking for.

Egg Sliced for the Sandwiches

This afternoon, I decided to prepare some additions for the sandwiches that would allow for some variation. On my last trip to New York City, I had an excellent Sabich sandwich at Taim Falafel. There was hard boiled egg and fried eggplant slices in the sanwich. To make the hardboiled eggs, I started with eggs submerged in cold water with a teaspoon each of salt and vinegar. I brought the water up to a boil, reduced the heat so the water was at a simmer for one minute, then removed the pot from the heat and covered it. After ten minutes, I put the eggs in an ice bath to stop the cooking. I later peeled and sliced them for the sandiwches.

Homemade Whole Wheat Pita

I wasn’t sure if I would end up making the pita at home, but yesterday I whipped up a whole wheat dough and it kind of worked out today… To make the dough, I added some warm water and about a tablespoon of honey to a packet of instant yeast. After about five minutes, the yeast was activated, and this was very apparent by the yeasty smell and layer of foam that had developed. In a large bowl, I put whole wheat flour and a few teaspoons of salt. I added the yeast and water mixture to the flour and mixe it in. The consistency was about that of cake batter. At this point, I continued to add flour until everything came together in a ball of what I thought might be the right consistency. I kneaded the dough for a few minutes, then put it into an oiled bowl and covered it with a damp towel. I let it rise for a few hours, then punched it down, wrapped it in plastic, and put it in the fridge overnight.

A few hours before dinner today, I took the dough out and let it sit at room temperature in a covered bowl until it starte to rise again. When the dough was almost ready, I put a pizza stone in the oven and set the oven to broil. After about 30 minutes, the stone was hot enough, and I left the oven on broil. I pulled portions of the dough from the large ball and rolled them out to circles about a quarter inch thick. After rolling them out, I would place them on the stone about 90 seconds on the first side, and another 60 seconds after flipping. The dough puffed up nicely, creating a pocket for the sandwiches to be built.

Pita Sliced and Open

In making the falafel, I wanted to stick with the theme I had established in the hummus, adding a bit more of a Far East twist in flavor. I started with rinsed and rained canned chickpeas in a food processor. I them added a couple roasted red peppers, a handful of cilantro, a couple teaspoons of tamarind concentrate, lime juice, salt, and black pepper. I pulsed the mixture, adding some baking powder, then adding buckwheat flour untilit reached the desired consistency.

Falafel in the Ebelskiver Pan...

I then heated the pan, sprayed each semi-circle with canola oil spray, and added enough falafel mixture to them most of the way. I cooked them at a relatively low heat until one side browned, then I would flip them and let them finish cooking on the other side. I tried one when they had finished, and I still am fairly surprised at the quality of the falafel that one can end up with using this healthy alternative to deep frying. The flavor is slightly different without sucha thick, crispy crust. It tastes less like a fried product, but I think that in a sandwich with supporting flavors and textures, the overall quality is excellent.

Falafel and Pan Fried Eggplant Slices

The eggplant was done very simply. I sliced them into circles and salted them to draw out a fair amount of the water. I then ground some black pepper on them an pan fried them in olive oil until browned on both sides.

After constructing the sanwiches, I was very pleased with the results. The red pepper, cilantro, and tamarind in the falafel went very well with the miso-tahini hummus, and I made my version of a Sabich sandwich. I started with slices of hard boiled egg adding a meaty quality and a flavor that goes surprisingly well with the fried eggplant and hummus that I piled on. I then added the Israeli salad which brought a quality of freshness and some acid  to the experience. It was all held together by the fliffy homemade pita. It was my own take on what I had experienced somewhere else, and I am happy to say that it satisfied a craving that was starting to get to me…

More on NYC Trip

As fantastic as my culinary adventures over the holidays were, it was inevitable that disappointments would be a part of it. I always hope the disappointments are outweighed by the positive experiences. During this week, they were, overwhelmingly so. The few sub-par experiences did not ruin my trip by any means. In fact, if I had a flawless three meals a day for an entire week, I would have considered it a failure in a different sense. Trying new things and exploring the city is something that I love to do, but I came across a few things that I will not try again, and some that I hope will find redemption the next time I do.

Something that I have tried at home is baking falafel. I have had limited success, and I actually have never baked them 100%. I have quickly fried them to get a crispy exterior, then cooked them the rest of the way in the oven. I have also recently cooked falafel in an ebelskiver pan. Both of these produced acceptable final products, but neither approached the quality that has been reached when I fully deep fry the balls of chickpeas and herbs. When I heard about chickpea and its few locations in New York City, I was intrigued. They bake their falafel, and this healthy alternative seemed worth a shot. When I arrived, I looked over the straightforward menu, and ordered two items. I ordered a chicken sandwich served in a pita. I chose between the four different kinds of hummus, original, roasted red pepper, basil toasted pine nuts, and jalapeno and scallions. I chose the jalapeno and scallion hummus, and it was served with lettuce and tomato. The vegetables were fresh, the chicken had a nice flavor and was cooked well, and the pita was of decent quality. What I was shocked by was the quality of the falafel. I had imagined what baked falafel might be like, and I thought that one should be able to produce something satisfying, even if it was not on the same level as fried. What I did not expect was something so dry that they practically needed to be submerged in sauce to absorb enough moisture to be palatable. Not only did they need to bake and not fry their falafel to achieve this state, they needed to severely overcook them. They probably needed to add too much flour and leave them out for too long as well. These were so far away from an acceptable falafel.

The next morning I woke up at my friend’s apartment and was ready for breakfast. It was 6:30am, and I was starving already. My friend would not be up for hours, so I had a little food at his apartment and hopped on the subway to the lower east side. I had never been to any of the Momofuku establishments but have been interested in much of what they are doing. Something that people seemed to be excited about were the steamed pork buns. I wanted to try them, and I saw that they served them for breakfast at Momofuku Milk Bar. I walked in at 9am and ordered them to go. I walked a couple blocks to a Starbucks, ordered a coffee, and sat down to enjoy the slow cooked pork belly in the soft, tender bun. What I experienced was by no means outstanding. The bun had a very pleasant texture but was a little overwhelming only because the bread to pork ratio was too high. The pork had clearly been cooked a long time, as the fat had become pleasantly tender. Unfotunately, the meat of the pork was a little dry and chewy. The sauce was okay, but it lacked a certain brightness. It just fell a little flat for me. Part of me thinks that 9am isn’t the best time to go get these buns. It was very quiet in there, and I am not sure when the pork was cooked, when the buns were cooked, and whether or not you might be able to expect a higher quality product during dinner service at one of the David Chang eateries.

The last evening I spent in New York, I went to Kefi for dinner. I had been there on a couple of occasions previously, and I was returning because of how much I enjoyed the food. I have had fantastic octopus, pasta, and meatballs, and I was never disappointed with a dish. On this visit, I would not come across a dish that satiated any of my expectations. I ordered the octopus appetizer (described in a previous Kefi post), a sweetbread appetizer with spinach, garlic, and crispy shallots, and the pork souvlaki. The octopus appetizer was so good the last time I went, but on this visit it was like I had been given another dish. The octpus was a little tougher than I remembered, and the tomatoes and bean salad might as well not have been there. On my last visit, it was extremely flavorful, the cooked tomato serving as an acidic sauce mellowed by a generous drizzle of olive oil, and the beans were well cooked while still holding onto some of their texture. The beans this time were undercooked and it seemed like they had run out the saucy tomatoes and thrown in a couple reconstituted sun dried tomatoes. I am not saying they did this, but they might as well have. The pork souvlaki was also not what I remembered. The pita was okay although a little soggy, the pork was slightly overcooked, and the tzatziki sauce was hardly that. It needed to be thinned out and freshened up a bit. The herbs seemed to have lost some of thier freshness, and the cucumber was a bit soggy. I hope to return to Kefi at some point in the future not because of this last experience, but because of what I remember from my first two trips. I want to give their food a chance to wow me again.

This last plate was by no means a bad dish, but it is one that I have read so much about recently. Over the past few months, I have seen so many rave reviews of the sea urchin toast at Marea. I had a fantastic meal when I went, but I would not say that the sea urchin toast was a highlight. The sea urchin is served on a piece of toast with a thin layer of lardo over the top, sprinkled with sea salt. I am a huge fan of the briny, oceany flavor of sea urchin, so all of the reviews I had seen excited me. When I took the first bite of this first course, I was not blown away. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and I cleared the plate. Regrettably, I did not find that the dish as a whole offered more than high quality sea urchin served on vinegared rice by a sushi chef. The addition of the lardo varied the texture some, offering a fatty film to coat your tongue. The sea urchin was fresh and flavorful, but I think a well toasted piece of bread with the same slathering of roe could be enjoyed to the same extent without the lardo and sea salt. The entire meal was surely a highlight of my trip, and this dish did not want to take away from the experience. I enjoyed the sea urchin, but after all that I read about it, I did not share the same feelings as some. The dish, in my eyes, was not a revelation.

Disappointing experiences clearly have much to do with one’s expectations. I experienced disappointment on a number of different levels while investigating many different kinds of food in New York. At Marea, the sea urchin toast was good, if not great, but I may have sat down that night with unrealistic expectations. At Chickpea, I was looking for decent falafel, not expecting anything close to the best falafel I ever had. I did, however, leave disappointed nonetheless. After having the Chickpea falafel one night and the disappointing meal at Kefi the next, I felt compelled to search the city late at night to make up for these meals. This is where my trip to Minetta Tavern from my last New York post fits in. It was one thirty in the morning, and I was elated to find the best burger I have ever had, only to leave the meal, cross the street, and order a surprisingly good falafel from Mamoun’s for $2.75. This was a perfect way to end my New York trip. I may have been up until four in the morning, but it more than made up for any of the dishes that had let me down.

NYC Recap

After a busy fall trying to balance a full time job, taking classes, and keeping to my track coach’s training schedule, I knew that I wanted to take some time during the holiday season to get away. Living in the northeast, my first choice is always New York. When I think about going out of town, my thoughts immediately turn to what food I might be able to eat and explore while I am there. New York has so much to offer, from what you find at the market, to the seemingly endless number of high end restaurants, to the equally unique and special “cheap eats” that are essential to survival for one in my position. On this trip to New York, I would be spending some time with family, some time with friends, and some time exploring the city on my own (mostly in the morning when friends were asleep and I would sneak out for a couple hours…). My parents were kind enough to take me out to dinner at places I cannot afford due to the ever dwindling bank account of a college student, and this added to the excitement of the trip. Meals included dinner at Michael Psilakis’ Anthos, a seafood centered, Greek inspired restaurant a block and a half from Bobby Flay’s Bar Americain (just an example of the culinary power that is so prevalent in the city), dinner at Ouest on the Upper West Side, New Year’s brunch at Norma’s at the Parker Meridien, breakfast at Shopsin’s in the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side, and dinner at the new and highly acclaimed Marea. I would have felt lucky to dine at just one of these establishments on my trip to the city, so being able to visit them all felt like somewhat of a miracle. Even more unbelievable is the list of places in the city where I hope to eat in the future, and how this list managed not to reduce in size after this trip, but to grow…

In addition to the meals I enjoyed with family, I was also on my own (with a friend) for a great number of meals. I had saved some money from my work this fall in anticipation of this trip, but for the most part I attempted to restrain myself as I wandered the streets in a state of wonder and amazement. It seems strange to speak of these feelings while waiting for a subway, watching the rats scurry across the tracks, but I had moments while exploring the streets when I was struck by all this city has to offer for someone as captivated with food as I am. During the rest of my time in the city I ate at falafel “joints,” I ate at Barney Greengrass and Kefi (another Michael Psilakis establishment) on the Upper West Side, and I ventured to the Lower East Side to try David Chang’s pork buns at 9am. I met friends for lunch at Ocean Grill and enjoyed (maybe a little too much) a late night trip to Minetta Tavern. I also spent some time at a number of different markets where I would discover some new foods ingredients, some of which I am very glad I did.

The trip had so many high points, and not all came along with the high price tags. I had a smoked Sturgeon appetizer at Ouest which brought exactly what I had wanted. I never ate smoked sturgeon before this trip to New York, and I knew that New York City was where I wanted to try it. I expected to find what I was looking for at Zabar’s or a deli, somewhere that specializes in in this kind of thing, but I found the sample I had purchased at Zabar’s to be lacking. The flavor was slightly fishy and lacked a noticeable smoke. The appetizer at Ouest however, far exceeded my expectations. Being in a high end restaurant, the dish was more refined, served with frisee, a poached egg, and lardons, but what accompanied the dish was not what defined it. The sturgeon had a velvety texture and retained a certain fresh quality in addition to a gentle smoke.

On a previous trip to New York, I visited Taim Falafel and Smoothie Bar. I had a falafel sandwich and tried each of their three flavors of falafel. They have a green falafel with parsley, cilantro, and mint, a roasted red pepper falafel, and a harissa spiced falafel, all of which I enjoyed the flavor of. One late morning while I wandered the city alone, I stopped by for an early lunch and decided to try their Sabich Sandwich. The sandwich is served in a pita and includes slices of fried eggplant, a sliced hard-boiled egg, hummus, Israeli salad, marinated cabbage, tahini, and a mango chutney. It sounded like a lot to me, but I found that when eating it, something was added to the experience by each ingredient. The fried eggplant was meaty and flavorful. The hard-boiled egg added to the “meatiness” but contributed a subtle eggy flavor that was not at all overwhelming. The Israeli salad and cabbage added freshness and crunch. The hummus and tahini added great flavor and creaminess, and the mango chutney added a touch of sweetness. Over all, it was a very satisfying sandwich, and for six dollars, it was certainly a highlight of the trip.

Also a highlight of the trip was an unexpected late night trip to Minetta Tavern. A friend of mine and I had split a couple bottles of wine and had two rounds of drinks at the bars before we made it to an eleven o’clock showing of Fantastic Mr. Fox. The movie was fairly entertaining, but I decided midway through the film that I was going to borrow my friends phone and look up somewhere to find good late night food during the middle of the week. I ended up on the Minetta Tavern website, and their closing time was listed as 2am. I had heard so much about their Black Label Burger, and could not think of anything I might want more than to have a great burger experience. I have spent some time looking for this experience in the past, and I always manage to some up short of what I hope. We get out of the movie at 12:30am and hop on the L train to Washington Square Park, three blocks from Minetta Tavern. We were not concerned about time, and this was nearly a problem. We made our way to the door at 12:55am, only to see that the listed closing time was 1am… The man at the door confused us for drunk college students who had made their way across the street from Mamoun’s Falafel, so we informed him that we were actually looking for a table. The hostess saw us come in and immediately sat us down, as the kitchen would be closing in five minutes. I ordered quickly for both my friend and me. I told him this was to be my treat, and I quickly grabbed his menu away. I ordered two appetizers, squid stuffed with salt cod, piquillo pepper, olives, and preserved lemon, and a trio of tartares, one beef, one lamb, and one veal. The appetizers were much enjoyed. The filling in the squid was excellent and made of for the fairly chewy exterior. The tartares were great. Each had a distinct flavor, and the texture was perfect. None of the three were the least bit chewy, and all had good “mouth feel.” Next we had the Black Label Burger. I had not ventured out for a burger in quite a while. I was a little sick of coming up short of my expectations so consistently. This time would be different. The burger was mix of prime dry-aged beef loosely held together by its own fat. It came on a custom made brioche bun and was served with caramelized onions. I am a big fan of caramelized onions, and I appreciate the sweetness they bring to any burger. The brioche bun was buttery and soft, very light and did not have as much sweetness as an ordinary brioche. But this burger was all about the meat. It had a nice crust and was thick and juicy. It was meltingly tender, a result of both the dry aged beef and the fat that had melted into it. The meet had a superb beefy flavor and an almost nutty quality that can only be obtained through careful dry-aging. I savored each bite, and though time has passed since, I still feel as though I can just barely taste that last bite. The memory remains on the tip of my tongue, although it is unfortunately not accompanied by the satisfaction that was in the moment. The only shared feeling is one of longing. I cannot wait until I can have the burger again, or at least another like it, wherever it may be. I had begun to doubt that I would find such a satisfying burger, but this trip gave me hope. I was not dreaming of some unattainable beast.

These highlights made the trip great, but there was so much more food that added to the experience. I had great food all over the city, and I will post about some of the experience soon. I may also get to some of the disappointments I came across. While exploring any great food city, these disappointments are inevitable. But don’t get me wrong, the positives I found far outweighed the negative, and I can’t wait to do it again.

Pasture Raised Pig and Lamb on the Menu at Bluebird

This fall I began work in the meat department at a local co-op in Burlington. I am learning a lot, and it has been fun. Weekly deliveries include whole pig, veal, lamb, venison, and sides of beef. I was surprised at how comfortable I was in the walk-in, ducking around hanging carcasses and removing innards with my bare hands. In my first days, I had brief moments when I would be reaching for a box of assorted beef cuts, and I would look to my right, only then noticing what I had pushed out of my way. Had I really not noticed that it was an entire half of a pig that I so rudely pushed aside?

Needless to say, in the development of my culinary interest over the past few years, using all parts of an animal is something that doesn’t leave me with an uneasy feeling. It excites me. This is not uncommon among my coworkers, and I had heard the word Bluebird thrown around a few times. From what I gathered, they had been there for dinner, it was something a little different for Burlington, VT, and they had very good things to say about it. They spoke mostly of the interesting menu and how they had made their way through nearly the entire thing. They were not talking about multiple visits. They were talking about the night before. I was going to have to go soon. I needed to experience this, or at least have my own experience of what they had to offer.

So I went with a roommate, my mom, and my step-dad. I have spent the last couple months living with one of my best friends, and he is experiencing many foods that he never would have thought. He was extremely reluctant at first but has become more adventurous each week we wake up across the hall from each other. My mom, I am still working on.

We had a reservation for 7 o’clock on a Wednesday, and we were seated when we arrived at a nice table in the corner. The restaurant, as its name would suggest, has a tavern feel. It is dimly lit with earth tones surrounding all diners. Shortly after we were seated, the server took our order. We ordered a couple of  “snacks” including  a salad of marinated and raw  vegetables. As it is fall, there was an assortment of root vegetables with a few greens, well dressed as to complement and not mask the flavor of the vegetables. My roommate and I had the warm uni with a warm mustard vinaigrette. The sea urchin roe had a nice, creamy texture and the aroma and taste immediately transported you to the ocean. The mustard vinaigrette was very mild, and I found that it neither added or took anything away from the dish. My mom seemed pleased with the deviled farm egg, and the entire table was impressed by the chicken liver toast. The liver was cooked well and was not too grainy or mineraly. It came with charred pieces of toast and a simple and sweet cipollini onion jam.

In addition to the appetizers, the chef also sent out a couple of complimentary bites. One was a little ball of liver terrine dusted in crushed pistachios. It looked nice, but I could not try it, as I have a mild nut allergy. The other was a little cube of deep fried head cheese. It was fairly good, but the fried breading was the prominent flavor rather than the terrine of pork.

For the main courses here, most are recommended to go along with another dish, or in our case, two or three. Mr friend and I shared a few dishes. We ordered the oysters and a fluke crudo that our server brought out first. The oysters were very good. They were fresh and served raw on the halfshell. They were served with a lemon vinegar that was excellent. It was very tart, and the lemon paired well with the briny oyster. The fluke crudo was not outstanding, and it was a very small portion. The raw strips of white fish were fresh, but fluke is a mild white fish, and serving it with breakfast radish and small shavings of cracklin (pork rind) did not add much to the dish. Along with these, I ordered a rare vos, a Belgian style amber ale. It came with a good head on and was enjoyed with the rest of the meal.

The tapas sized dishes did not stop here, which was a good thing for my hunger, but it did help keep the bill down. Our next four dishes came out along with what my mom and step-dad ordered for their main course. They shared the double burger and a celery root soup that was served with baby scallops floating somewhere in the middle of it. The soup was flavored with ham hock, but I found that it was surprisingly sweet and lacked a real celery root flavor. Oh yeah, I tried their two dishes as well. The burger was fairly good, but nothing too special. The meat was well cooked, but was served with a boucher blue that I am surprised to say was nowhere near overpowering. That is generally what I worry about when a burger is served with blue cheese, but with at least the bite I took, the cheese may as well have not been there.

The four dishes my friend and I were sharing included a veal heart dish, razor clams, a squid spaghetti, and a flatbread with falafel. I started with the razor clams which came with a couple of fingerling potatoes. The potatoes were not bad, but the razor clams were excellent, very tender with a good flavor reminiscent of the ocean. The squid spaghetti and the flatbread were probably my least favorite plates to come to the table. The squid ink pasta was well cooked, but the squid ink added nothing but color. The squid in the dish was a little bit tough, and I found that the saffron vinaigrette was a little heavy and lacked any hint of saffron. Then there was the flatbread. The bread itself had a decent flavor and chararound the ouside, but was soggy through probably 75 percent of it from some sort of vinaigrette. The falafel was okay, fairly light, but were a little sparse and seemed to be mostly made up of the fried outside. There was not much of the light, fluffy interior that I enjoy in a falafel. Lastly, the arugula was something that I did not enjoy at all. There was a fair amount of it, and I think that the dish would have been much better served removing whatever the bread was sopping up and using it to dress the arugula.

I didn’t save this dish  for last, but it was far and away the one I enjoyed the most. The veal heart was served with braised escarole, house made guanciale (an unsmoked salted and cured meat, usually made from pig’s jowls or cheeks), and a soft egg. Everything here made sense to me. The escarole was well cooked, the soft egg oozed a bright yellow yolk when you broke through it, and the guanciale provided a salty contrast (although it was diced small and could easily go unnoticed). The veal was fantastic. It was cooked perfectly, on the rare side of medium rare in order to maintain it’s tenderness. It certainly did that. The five slices of heart were a meaty pinkish-red in the center and were well seasoned to bring out the flavor of the meat. I would certainly go back  and have this dish again, recommending it to anyone who makes it there while it is still on the menu.

Overall, I had a good time. It was fun to go experience this with family and a good friend. I very much appreciate what they are trying to do here as well. Their menu changes often according to what they have, and producing consistent dishes with a changing menu is much more difficult to do than dishing out the same dished night after night. The chef here clearly is looking to work creatively, and that is part of what makes eating at a place like this exciting, even if not every dish comes out perfectly.

10/28/2009

Hungry Pocket Falafel House in Santa Monica, CA

This was my second stop for good falafel in the LA area, and after reading some reviews, I was excited after my first falafel experience of the trip. I drove to Santa Monica College, and there it was, right across the street. It was cheap as promised, but to my disappointment, I got what I paid for… maybe. I ordered a falafel pita. When I was handed the falafel, it did not appear to be something special, but sometimes at smaller, inexpensive places you don’t pay for that. You pay for flavor. I don’t know what I paid for here. There was some shredded iceberg lettuce, a tahini sauce that was overly acidic, under-seasoned, and hardly tasted of tahini. The falafel was beige all the way through, and honestly, barely tasted of anything. There were three relatively small balls of falafel, and there was a large doughy pita that must have been around 80 percent of the sandwich. This was the first falafel sandwich I have not finished, disappointing to say the least.

08/15/2009

Alexandria Cafe in Santa Monica, CA

I had lunch here one day while visiting my brother in Santa Monica. I had rented a bike and spent some time riding around town, but had to come back and meet my dad before we went and got something to eat. Unfortunately, I was about thirty seconds from out hotel when I passed Alexandria Cafe. I was in the mood for a falafel, so I quickly rode by, noting the establishment. I told my dad that there was a Mediterranean place right around the corner, thinking we could walk by and check it out. They serve gyros, falafel, some platters of chicken or falafel or the beef and lamb mixture, etc… We walked over, and after a quick look, I was less than impressed. Their pitas looked grocery store quality at best. That is one of the first things that I take note of when I head into somewhere serving sandwiches in pita bread. I told my dad we should probably keep walking to find something else (we wouldn’t have to walk far). But apparently that wasn’t an option, as he had neglected to eat a real breakfast, worked out for a couple hours, and couldn’t make it any longer. I was disappointed, but ordered that falafel I had been craving.

The woman serving us was very nice. I wanted to like the food. She brought it over a few minutes later to a table outside. My first bite did not exceed my expectations. The pita tasted like it looked, the falafels were bland and overfried, and the tahini sauce was watery and under-seasoned. There was some fairly crisp lettuce and fresh tomato which was suprising considering the rest. My dad got a plate of the lamb and beef mixture, and it came with tabouli, pita, and hummus. The tabouli was edible. The hummus I would not eat again. The woman serving us was extremely friendly, and the food came relatively quickly (it was not busy). The food was definitely a let down, and I can’t see myself heading back here. I will have to spend some more time searching for a good falafel in the Los Angeles area. it has to exist, right?

08/14/2009

Another trip for Kabobs…

Yeah, I think the guy at Ahli Baba’s gained back a lot in my eyes today. I went with my brother, and we got a steak kabob pita and a falafel. We split them.  I also got three sandwiches to take back for the rest of my family, and on a 90-degree day this guy was working hard, very nice, and extremely concerned with getting me the food quickly and making sure any request I had was fulfilled. Also, the steak pita was pretty good. London broil cut into cubes, grilled right there, served in one of their quality pitas with a barbecue sauce, herb mayo, lettuce, and tomato. As usual, the veggies were fresh. My brother liked it the best, and I remain faithful to the falafel. Ahli Baba’s earns most of their credit for the falafel. If you want to consider the full menu, it is okay, but the falafel has been consistently solid. A good cheap eats sandwich place in Burlington.

08/13/2009

Ahli Baba’s in Burlington, VT: Another Visit

I hate to say it about a place where you can get some good food at a good price, but I tried their lamb souvlaki yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t terrible, but it did not compare to the souvlaki pita I had in New York at Kefi. Granted, I payed a little over twice as much for that one, but the pork served at Ahli Baba’s was a bit chewy and the pita had become a little soggy in a very short time. I also split a falafel with my dad, and that was a nice way to end the meal. I think, and hope actually, that after I go back (which I will) and try some more of their menu items like the steak kabob pita and the curry chicken, I can update this once again. The service was great this time. The guy working was very nice, served us quickly, and gave my dad a couple things of extra tsatziki sauce without batting an eye.

08/10/2009

Ahli Baba’s Kabob Shop in Burlington, VT

I haven’t eaten here late at night, but I appreciate that it is open weekends until 3am, so that will probably change soon. I went for lunch, and I got the falafel pita. The first thing I noticed was the quality of the pita. I have seen the pitas at similar places in New York, and many of them are similar to the ones you buy in a grocery store, while these are certainly superior. Also, the veggies were very fresh, and the tzatziki sauce had very good flavor, the cucumber and dill flavors in a good way, even though it may have been a little runny. And the falafels were good quality as well. When fresh, they are excellent. If you are there towards the end of a batch, you might hardly notice, but in my mind, the fresher the better. Either way, good flavor, crunchy outside, and probably the most difficult part of falafel: they are very moist. I will definitely continue to eat here, and I will inevitably try the other sandwiches. Oh, and the food here seems pretty healthy too, if that matters to you…

07/26/2009

Taim Falafel and Smoothie in NYC

I came to New York looking for food. One thing that I certainly wanted to find was good falafel. Here at Taim I found solid falafel and good homemade drinks. The condiments and extras were pretty good. I went and had a green falafel pita, as well as a sample platter. The Israeli salad was okay in the pita and on the platter, and the tabouli was also pretty good, but nothing special. The hummus had a nice creamy texture, although I think it could have had more flavor, maybe a touch more salt. The pitas were good, better than you can buy in any store, but I have had a better house-made pita.

And the falafels. I thought that the flavor in all three falafel was very good. The roasted red pepper flavor in these balls was very prominent, and I am a big roasted red pepper fan. There is a little spice in the harissa which was nice, and I very much enjoyed the herby flavor in the green falafel. What I was disappointed with was how the balls were fried. They were fried to order, which is excellent, but I found that the balls were too small for how long they were fried. There was a rather thick crispy shell of what would have been in contact with the oil, and I found that there was more of this crispy layer than I like in my falafel as opposed to a soft and chewy inside. I enjoy a bigger falafel with a thin but crispy outer layer, and a significant portion of the ball I like to be soft, with a little bit of texture coming from chickpea that was not entirely pureed. This may be personal preference, but I have definitely taken some notes in how to add different flavors to falafel that I make at home.

07/14/2009