Overheard at XPL: “What’s Falafel?”

Lunch’er “PK” sends this description of what it was like to wait on line at XPL (on 48th & Park) yesterday: “It’s clear that the NYT article is bringing out people who would not normally come out. One guy was literally holding a copy of the dining section as he came up to the cart, checked the fruit cart right next to XPL to make sure that wasn’t the cart mentioned in the article, before getting in line. He asked what a falafel was and then got a falafel sandwich. One other guy asked “What cut of lamb is it?” which I almost laughed out loud at. Gyro meat is not exactly a niman ranch lamb shank.”  Awesome.

Related:

NYT Drives Huge Traffic to Midtown Carts Today

18 Comments

  • People are work were talking about this website the other day. I’ll just pretend i haven’t been following it for 2 years.

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    Bit of a tangent, but a few weeks ago I was having pizza at Bella Vita, and I overheard a woman ask, “What’s that white stuff on the pizza, is it egg?” Answer: “That’s cheese.” I involuntarily laughed out loud.

    I guess that after too much Domino-ification of pizza, people don’t know what mozzarella looks like.

  • OK, I’ll bite: What kind of lamb IS in streetmeat? Someone must know.

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    Side comment: It seems easily possible to see falafel all the time, eat falafel ocassionally, and even like falafel without quite knowing what it is. I’m not quite sure I know what it is. It has chick peas in it, right?

  • HAHAHA. At least nobody asked what is halal? Or if they used organic or natural ingredients? lol.

  • “could you go easy on the sauce and the salt”

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    Stevenp – I’m guessing most “lamb” is a beef and lamb ground meat mix purchased from a vendor (think “kronos”, lots of guys wear the free t-shirts or have the umbrellas with the logo)

    Dan L. – chickpeas, fava beans or a combination of the two.

  • I think that asking what is in gyro is like asking what’s in bologna.

  • When did you last see a cat in midtown?

  • @ Zach: my sentiments exactly.

  • There’s this homeless guy who keeps a cat on a leash that I see around the central park area.

    Flatrock – I think it’s less of a mix and more of a preformed cone of meat that they get from kronos.

  • Halal is code for free range, non-gmo, but not organic.

  • Zach, isn’t bologna that member of the bovine family that originally roamed the South Americam pampas and later was imported to the American midwest and is also being raised on European farmlands now?

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    The amazing part of that story is not that someone didn’t know what falafel was, but that someone apparently bought a copy of the New York Times.

  • Zach – There was recently an uproar where it was discovered that some Doner Kebab’s actually contained some pork:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7852168.stm

    So I guess, some people *do* wan’t to know what’s in their gyro :)

  • “Wan’t”? Must be a tech guy.

  • Yeah. I recently picked up that habit. NFC how or why that started. It’s a phenomenon that developed within the past year.

    And yeah, I’m a UNIX geek.

    Lastly, I’m always amused when someone corrects typo’s with a grammatically incorrect sentence… :)

  • Not a sentence. ;^)

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