Midtown Lunch

I visited Falafel Bar on Chestnut Street when it first opened over 2 years ago, intended to write about it, and then basically forgot. Thats probably not the best sign, but I decided to make another visit to see if it might be more memorable.

The Mediterranean fries make a nice, zesty,  shareable side dish; they come with both regular and sweet potato homemade fries and are topped with fried onions and peppers.

I liked the idea of the “mix” sandwich ($6.50) ; a combo of falafel, fried eggplant, veggie latkes, with a tomato and cucumber salad. They allowed me to swap out the hummus for baba ganouj.  More sauces are available at the salad bar; I should have grabbed a little container of some sauce to dip, as the pita was unremarkable and the baba was on spread on one side.  I was able to take a away a little container of spicy carrots and crunchy slaw.

The falafel is not the best in town, it didn’t have much structural integrity inside the moist pita. The flavor was decent though. The fried eggplant was my favorite part of the “mix”; it was sweet and thoroughly cooked. The latke, which seemed to be made out of zucchini rather than potato, had potential, but desperately needed salt. The whole messy combo worked together, but once again, nothing stood out. Perhaps the falafel burger or another menu item might be slightly more memorable?

Falafel Bar, 1513 Chestnut St, 215-568-0800