COLUMNS
Falafel Stars of the Village
/ Nick Sylvester
05.10.07
Sometime last year I developed a self-satisfying, Good Samaritan-type obsession with the Original Falafel Star on East 7th Street. I hadn't yet seen the Seinfeld episode where Jerry untangles virtually the same knot of pathos I'm about to, so had no idea I was engrossed in what's apparently a gastronomical banality, i.e. the delusional belief that a restaurant's welfare depended on my good will alone. This is what I did know though. Before I had even been to Original Falafel Star, I had decided on three things. The first was: Original Falafel Star made the best falafel in East Village. The second: whoever ran the place would bear some resemblance to someone in my family. Three: I would eat here all the time. Only one of these remains true.
There are about twenty falafel joints in the East Village region, which I demarcate on the west by Fourth Avenue, the north by 14th Street, the south by Houston (give/take), the east by the river - 21 if you count the metal stand on (I think it's) 11th Street and First Avenue, the one whose side reads, "BEST FLAFEL IN TOWN."
This is how falafel is made, generally speaking: Dried chickpeas are drowned in a bucket of cold water for 24 hours, then drained and re-panned. From there they're dumped into a bowl with garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, and baking powder, then mashed into a thick paste, and from the paste, servings sized like ping-pong balls are deep-fried in oil for about five or six minutes until golden brown. A semi-respectable falafel maker will then stuff about three of these balls deep into a grilled pita coated on the inside with hummus, then add fresh cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, a dusting of some Middle Eastern spice, and a healthy ladling of white tahini sauce, which is a smooth blend of sesame seed paste and olive oil.
Obviously there is room for variety - the type, quantity and quality of chickpea and additive ingredients, the time chickpeas spend in the deepfryer, the kind and freshness and preparation of the pita bread, the places your falafel maker's hands have been beforehand, etc. – but there's also something rote and predictable to the sandwich. It's a pita, it's mostly hot, one bite and it tastes like the healthiest possible thing you could ever bite into in the shrinking $2.50-$4.50 range, the other bite it tastes like a paste of chickpeas deep-fried in grease, i.e. physically devastating. That, and falafel isn't necessarily consumed with the gustatory expectations we bring into a Michelin-approved establishment. Like pizza, we're often eating it mostly for sustenance, on the fly before a concert or on impulse after a night of heavy drinking. If there’s any rule, falafel just has to not taste bad.
There are about twenty falafel joints in the East Village region, which I demarcate on the west by Fourth Avenue, the north by 14th Street, the south by Houston (give/take), the east by the river - 21 if you count the metal stand on (I think it's) 11th Street and First Avenue, the one whose side reads, "BEST FLAFEL IN TOWN."
This is how falafel is made, generally speaking: Dried chickpeas are drowned in a bucket of cold water for 24 hours, then drained and re-panned. From there they're dumped into a bowl with garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, and baking powder, then mashed into a thick paste, and from the paste, servings sized like ping-pong balls are deep-fried in oil for about five or six minutes until golden brown. A semi-respectable falafel maker will then stuff about three of these balls deep into a grilled pita coated on the inside with hummus, then add fresh cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, a dusting of some Middle Eastern spice, and a healthy ladling of white tahini sauce, which is a smooth blend of sesame seed paste and olive oil.
Obviously there is room for variety - the type, quantity and quality of chickpea and additive ingredients, the time chickpeas spend in the deepfryer, the kind and freshness and preparation of the pita bread, the places your falafel maker's hands have been beforehand, etc. – but there's also something rote and predictable to the sandwich. It's a pita, it's mostly hot, one bite and it tastes like the healthiest possible thing you could ever bite into in the shrinking $2.50-$4.50 range, the other bite it tastes like a paste of chickpeas deep-fried in grease, i.e. physically devastating. That, and falafel isn't necessarily consumed with the gustatory expectations we bring into a Michelin-approved establishment. Like pizza, we're often eating it mostly for sustenance, on the fly before a concert or on impulse after a night of heavy drinking. If there’s any rule, falafel just has to not taste bad.