Falafel by another name: tapping the mainstream, Maoz misses the mark

Don't let the name fool you: the falafel is inside.

Maoz
38 Union Square E (b/w E 16th and E 17th), New York, NY (Map)
(212) 260-1988
$5.45/falafel sandwich (with hummus)

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At Maoz, things are not exactly as they seem and that’s how Maoz wants it. As Santogold sings in L.E.S. Artistes, the song blaring a few decibels too loudly on a slow rainy weekday evening, “Build me up, bring me down/just leave me out you name dropper.” Probably not about falafel (or is it?), but fittingly relevant to the disconnect between Maoz and its Middle Eastern food.

Maoz, an international falafel chain recently rated by Time Out NY as one of the best falafel sandwiches in NYC, chooses to call its falafel sandwich a “Maoz,” which comes in either a Royal or Jr. size in whole wheat or white pita with vegetables and sauces from the salad bar adjacent to the register. That’s right: a “maoz” instead of a falafel sandwich. But this makes sense in the land of Maoz where the Maoz name is just as important if not more so than the falafel it peddles. Maoz markets itself as a vegetarian fast food chain, and with 25 locations (and growing), four in New York alone, Maoz certainly has succeeded in expanding on its fast food formula: quick service, simple menu with easy-to-order “meal deals,” uniform color scheme, easily replaceable employees etc. “All the branches look the same, with the same logo and the word ‘vegetarian.’ They are all painted green because we are talking about healthy food,” founder/owner Nachman Milo told ynet news, an Israeli news site, in a revealing feature about Maoz’s founding and transformation from a small falafel stand in Amsterdam to an international chain selling a worldwide total of 12,000 falafel balls daily. Milo continues, “We want to become like McDonald’s. It will be impossible to imitate us because the product will be identified with the name of the franchise.” That is, of course, assuming people want to imitate your product.

The falafel is hallucinogen-free and my camera is sober. This is actually what it looks like inside.

Don’t get me wrong. Like many patriotic Americans, I love my fast food chains. After I saw the documentary, Fast Food Nation, I chowed down on a Whopper at Burger King. Before my last birthday party, I super sized my Big Mac meal at McDonald’s. To this day, I suffer from In-N-Out withdrawal. However, while I embrace fast food and consider chickpeas an indispensable food group, Maoz’s product, falafel, unlike fast food burger chains, doesn’t offer as much leeway for standardization. Unlike McDonald’s burgers and fries, falafel cannot be distributed as prepackaged and/or frozen; unlike Burger King’s buns, pita is best when it’s fresh from the oven; and unlike Wendy’s frosty, falafel consists of more than a mixture of chocolate syrup, ice cream and crack. In short, falafel is an intricately spiced food, whose quality is contingent on its freshness and flavor. So while Maoz prepares its falafel from scratch, a valiant effort to make fast food fresh (pun!), the falafel sandwich Maoz still lacks the requisite fresh quality and delicate spice combination to taste great. It’s not bad. It’s just not all that good. Frankly, I’m uncertain any falafel chain of Maoz’s size and scope could replicate the quality of a gourmet falafel stand whose owner must stand daily behind his/her falafel creation. Indeed, no matter how identifiable or innovative it’s marketing, Maoz’s schizophrenic website and psychedelic interiors cannot compensate for its bland hummus and oily falafel. And the vegetables? Tasty, but I did them myself.

The salad bar: a test in moderation that I failed miserably.

After ordering a “Maoz” with hummus, I received a pita with falafel and instructions from the bubbly cashier that I could stack my Maoz with as many vegetables as I would like from the salad bar. Maoz deserves credit for its extensive salad bar, which includes spiced carrots, beets, cilantro, iceberg lettuce with tomatoes, pickles, olives, coleslaw, purple cabbage, cilantro, and more. Now although I appreciate Maoz’s vegetable variety, I like my falafel sandwich ready-to-eat, especially if I’m taking it “to go.” Moreover, portioning the vegetable options proportionally and evenly for a harmonious bite is tricky. Perhaps this is why the Maoz employees don’t actually prepare your falafel sandwich. The mysterious cook in the back stands behind a wall and the two college-aged workers up front either man the cashier or the extensive salad bar; neither of the two visible employees seemed all that well-informed about the falafel’s ingredients or falafel in general.

Falafel and mayo go together like bacon on a veggie burger. Must be for the fries.

I passed on the beets and spiced carrots, opting to prepare my falafel sandwich as traditionally and delicately as possible, with schug, tahini, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and red cabbage. In general, the vegetables are fresh and crisp, which partially excuses the salad bar’s miss with the pickles. Unlike the small, crunchy and sour Middle Eastern pickles which intensify the flavor of the falafel, Maoz uses sliced dill pickles, soaked in a sweeter brine, which detracted from the sandwich’s overall flavor.  The red cabbage, on the other hand, tasted light and crisp, adding a nice crunch to contrast the texture and flavor of the falafel. The tahini sauce, located next to the mayonnaise (for the fries?), ketchup, yogurt sauce (?), and garlic sauce (again, for the fries?) was rich and creamy and meshed well with the cilantro-heavy schug. Upon clocking out from my shift at Maoz, observing the hefty sandwich in my hands, I concluded that Maoz’s customers are probably more trained in making falafel sandwiches than the employees behind the counter. Ultimately, while I appreciated the options and general freshness and maintenance of the salad bar, the vegetables buried my falafel and hummus at the bottom of my pita and the squirts of tahini failed to penetrate the veggie panoply. Fortunately, the pita, though chewy and slightly underbaked, was thick and held my sandwich together under my heavy hand.

When I did manage to squeeze out bites of  falafel and hummus, each proved underwhelming, which was slightly relieving as I was no longer partially to blame. While I was pleasantly surprised by the falafel’s amount of flavor, there was too much onion and too little cumin. Although too little onion is fixable, cumin is essential for the immediate spice and smokiness of falafel, laying the foundation for the cleaner and crisper spices – cilantro, coriander, onion etc. – that follow. However, none of this really mattered, because the falafel was deep fried in oil that wasn’t fresh, which overrode these subtle flavors. Despite feeble attempts to salvage the falafel by swiping it in hummus, the hummus, a black hole of flavor, rendered everything it touched bland. A falafel catch-22: oily or bland? While I could slightly improve the falafel with tahini, the hummus slathered all over the bottom of my pita was difficult to discard and hurt an otherwise passable falafel sandwich.

Does it look appetizing? Why thank you. I made it myself.

Although I appreciate the variety of vegetables at Maoz, the quality of the falafel doesn’t measure up to the marketing hype. As I wrote in the left-side column of this blog, I don’t mind where you come from as long as your falafel tastes good. And I really don’t. But the globalization and subsequent denationalization of Maoz from a small Israeli falafel stand in Amsterdam to a vegetarian fast-food empire seems to have also stripped its falafel of some flavor and quality. It’s a fact Milo’s wife, the original falafel cook, isn’t making 12,000 falafel daily. Good falafel is labor intensive and complex and demands attention and perhaps even some personal investment and pride to taste great. How does Maoz train its cooks? How premade is the falafel? How is quality checked and ensured? While Maoz proves falafel can stand the fast-food profit test, the food ultimately speaks for itself, no matter what you choose to call it.

Rating: 2.5 chickpeas

2009 Time Out New York’s Best(?) Cheap Falafel

In it’s Cheap Eats 2009 issue this week, Time Out New York selects what it deems the best cheap falafel in New York City. The list includes well-known chains, Maoz and Chickpea, as well as a perennial NYC cheap eats pick, Mamoun’s. No surprises here. Pretty unconvinced any real research or sleuthing went into these rather conventional, strictly Manhattan picks.

Falafel in a Financial Wasteland

A 42-seat restaurant and 42 empty seats.

Alfanoose
8 Maiden Lane (b/w Broadway & Nassau St.), New York, NY (Map)
(212) 528-4669
$5.75/falafel sandwich

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During the workday, the Financial District is overrun with traders and tourists alike.  However,  as I soon found out on a recent  falafel foray, the epicenter of our recent economic meltdown transforms into a certifiable ghost town after 6:30 p.m. during the weekday. Fortunately, for the stray tourist, employee working overtime, or falafel lover like myself, Alfanoose (Arabic, for “magic lantern”) is open until 9 p.m. serving made-to-order falafel in a restaurant where seating is guaranteed.

Read it and weep: out with rancid oil and precooked falafel and in with freshness and made-to-order delicacies.

Alfanoose, long a staple on New York Magazine’s “Best of” lists, prides itself on elevating falafel above the omnipresent Middle Eastern “quick meal” found on nearly every street corner in New York City. In fact, according to Alfanoose’s website, Mouhamad Shami, the owner of Alfanoose and a foodie purist at heart, opened the restaurant because of what he deemed as a lack of tasty, authentic Syrian/Lebanese food in New York City. This commitment to quality ingredients and made-to-order falafel is expressed in a poetic display, The Art of the Falafel, located on the wall next to the kitchen. In Shami’s elucidation of his falafel mantra, he also conveys the need for customers to exhibit patience because good falafel takes time.  There’s something humorous but ultimately respectable about a falafel restaurant straight up telling its stressed-out finance clientele to chill out about closing whatever billion-dollar deal because, in Alfanoose, the delicate art of falafel takes precedence. Needless to say, Shami is people and he can make me wait on his delicious, authentic falafel sandwich any night of the week.

As advertised, Alfanoose’s falafel are made fresh-to-order, which shows in the crispy, yet breakable, falafel exterior. Like french fries, fried chicken, or a Paula Deen bagel sandwich, deep-fried food is best eaten soon after frying.  Unfortunately, the wait may have been too long as the length of cooking time and/or the heat of the oil (perhaps at a lower temperature than usual with so few customers at night) left the crispy falafel overcooked and slightly dry in the center. Finely chopped onion, typically included in Lebanese falafel for taste and a softer texture, failed to remedy the overcooked and dry taste. Regardless, the flavor of Alfanoose’s traditional falafel, made up of ground chickpea, onion, cumin, coriander, parsley, and garlic, was well-balanced and proportionate. The falafel, while slightly dense on its own, tasted very good coupled with the sesame-paste-rich tahini sauce, which both softened the falafel and complemented its flavor.

Pickled turnips! Who knew we'd meet this way?

Alfanoose’s falafel sandwich is wrapped up like a burrito in warmed up flatbread, which reviewers and Shami refer to as pita, but I believe is more akin to laffa or taboon bread. Allegedly baked on-site, the wrap seemed pre-packaged, lacking warmth and freshness. The most forgettable aspect of the falafel sandwich, the wrap certainly didn’t mesh with Shami’s posted commitment to quality. That said, the vegetables were right on the money. The falafel are wrapped up with plenty of fresh green lettuce (no cheap iceberg here), parsley, large chunks of tomato, slivers of purple onion, pickles and pickled turnips soaked in beet juice. I didn’t stutter: beet-soaked, pickled turnips, and yes, you must make sure to order these pickled powerhouses. The acidity of the turnips and the pickles opposite the cumin and coriander in the falafel with the generous drizzling of the rich tahini sauce wetted the falafel sufficiently, ultimately alleviating the dryness of the falafel and compensating for an otherwise bland “pita” wrap. However, as we’ve all learned in the world of finance, what comes up must come down.

Fried and fresh. Tried and true.

Now, as a rule, I order my falafel sandwich with all of the ingredients, including hot sauce. I like heat and generally I handle it well; if anything, better than the average heat seeker. Well, apparently my days eating Midtown food failed to prepare me for the rough and tumble, offensive hot sauce stomached down in the Financial District. Alfanoose’s hot sauce alone overwhelmed so many of the good flavors in my falafel sandwich and masked the more complex and subtle flavors, even causing my falafel eating partner (also a huge fan of heat) to shed a few tears. Perhaps tears from the heat or tears from the sheer agony of a nearly amazing falafel sandwich gone amok. Similar to the hot sauce at the chicken and rice carts peppered throughout New York City, the hot sauce at Alfanoose is straight heat, which is fine as long as its peddled with caution. As a lover of (more) hot sauce, I think a fair warning or an erring on the side of less would have made this heat overdose excusable. In the end, however, the hot sauce tainted an otherwise artful falafel sandwich.

It looks all sweet. Teasing me. But I know you're in there, mean ol' hot sauce.

At a steep $5.75 a sandwich, you’re paying for the fresh ingredients, the fresh oil, and the care that Alfanoose puts into making each falafel sandwich especially for you. And the freshness is worth the additional cost. But the sandwich can taste better. While the falafel flavors, the vegetables (pickled turnips, this won’t be our last dance), and the tahini sauce were spot on, the mildly overcooked falafel, the tasteless and bland laffa, and the uninspiring-yet-overpowering hot sauce missed the mark. Alfanoose is certainly above average lunch fare, but to journey to the Financial District solely for Alfanoose is an investment I recommend with caution.

Rating: 3.5 chickpeas

Taim: a fresh, gourmet spin

Taim packs top-notch ingredients and big flavors despite its small, six-stooled space.

Taim Falafel & Smoothie Bar
222 Waverly Place (just west of 7th Ave.), New York, NY (Map)
(212) 691-1287
$5.25/falafel sandwich

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The chef/owner of Taim (Hebrew, for “tasty; delicious”), Einat Admony, is one of the most well-known falafel chefs in the nation.  She appeared on The Food Network’s Chopped, which she won, and engaged in a Throwdown with Bobby Flay, which she lost (though, as consolation, Flay proclaimed her falafel as the true winner). Moreover, Ed Levine, of Serious Eats declared Taim as the best falafel in New York City. How can one pita and six falafel balls possibly live up to the deafening hype? Well, in short, with fresh, quality ingredients, balanced preparation, and a well-fried falafel made up of unique, complementary flavors.

The size of a Manhattan living room, Taim makes the most of its limited space. Six high stools line the walls and sidewalk benches accommodate the crowd overflow.  Regardless, what Taim lacks in size, it compensates for in quality.

Go Green!

Taim offers three falafel choices — Green (cilantro, mint), Red (roasted pepper), and Harissa (spicy,Tunisian-inspired) — in either wheat or white pita. The roasted red pepper and harissa are immensely tasty in their own right, but the green falafel, barring you’re not a cilantrophobe, tastes the best. Contrasting the clean, refreshing taste of cilantro and mint with the acidity of lemon juice and the smokiness of cumin creates a flavorful spin off of the predominant cumin-coriander taste typical of most falafel. Though not wholly traditional, it’s incredibly tasty and refreshing. Made up solely of coarsely-ground chickpeas (no fava beans) and deep-fried, the falafel at Taim are crunchy on the outside but remain moist, flavorful, and evenly balanced on the inside, allowing the unique blend of spices to complement one another for an ultimately complex and satisfying taste.

The salad bar, though limited, is great sans the detracting coleslaw-cabbage.

The pita at Taim, shipped daily from a well-chosen factory in Brooklyn, is warmed on a stove top and remains fluffy and light, but thick enough as not to break down and create a mess in your hands. And trust me, at Taim, you don’t want to lose one potential bite. The Israeli-style falafel joint adds the typical accoutrements to its falafel: hummus, Israeli salad, cabbage, and tahini (with pickles, amba, and schug upon request). While I recommend requesting pickles, amba, and schug for the most explosive flavor, Taim’s cabbage slightly disappoints and detracts from the sandwich overall. Normally, the cabbage in falafel sandwiches is soaked in vinegar or pickled in a similarly acidic base pitting a crunchy and fresh texture and flavor opposite the deep-fried goodness. Taim’s cabbage, on the other hand, is more like coleslaw — soggy and slightly sweet. While tasty alone, the cabbage overwhelms the freshness of the falafel and the other sandwich ingredients; not the best complement.  But cabbage aside, the salad and hummus are top-notch, and the skhug (some of the best I’ve had in the city), coupled with the amba, provides the right 1-2 punch of spiciness and tang.

If only computer monitors and jpegs were edible.

All in all, I highly recommend Taim. The fresh, gourmet falafel, for $5.25 per sandwich, could seemingly fill you up and Admony’s amazing green falafel alone are worth the trip.

Rating: 4.5 chickpeas

About The NYC Falafelogs and Me + The Rating System

About Me

I grew up eating my Mom’s Middle Eastern cooking. When other kids were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in elementary school, I was eating hummus and pita. When I requested lunchables, I got seasoned chickpeas.

Fortunately, my culinary tastes matured eventually, and when I found myself on my own in the food Mecca of New York City, in withdrawal from Mama’s delicacies I’d grown to savor, I quickly learned that falafel, my favorite of all Middle Eastern treats, was not only prevalent in NYC, but celebrated.

Hence, after years of food excursions throughout the city, and a healthy dose of newfound free time, I decided that a guide to the best falafel joints in NYC (and some recipes and digressions along the way) would not only serve as a useful reference and safe space for my fellow falafel afficionados to congregate and converse, but also as a palatable excuse for a semi-alienating falafel mania.

The Rating System

Maxing out at five chickpeas, the rating for each falafel location is holistic, with an emphasis on taste and value and various intangibles. The only requirement is that the falafel sandwich (no platters) must be made to-go. Eat-in-only restaurants are too fancy for this blog and for my wallet.