Falafel Blues
A few weeks ago, before I left for vacation, I took the E train home from work one day instead of the F that I normally take. This led me to what I thought was the best food discovery in since Mo’s Barbeque, which turned out to be just a mediocre find, though it easily trumped IHOP as the best sit-down restaurant within walking distance of my office. Pathetic, right? That’s why I bring my lunch almost every day. Anyway, as I was about to enter the subway at the corner of Parsons Boulevardand Archer Avenue, my eyes were drawn to a Halal street cart. In addition to the typical meat offerings which do not entice me, I noticed the sign on his cart indicated he sold falafel sandwiches.
I love falafel sandwiches. When I worked in the diamond district, there were two falafel stands across from each other on 47th and 6th Avenue. Miriam’s is the best I’ve ever tasted. And when I lived in Astoria , I often went to the stand on Steinway and 34th Avenue where they stuffed french fries into the pita.
Even though falafels are fried, they are vegetarian and still healthier, I think, than most other fast food offerings. And, cheap too, at $3.50 per sandwich. I made a mental note of this stand and decided that the next time I did not bring my lunch, I would check it out. The other day I decided to go. I asked Ray if she wanted a sandwich, but she declined. My boss Diana wanted one, though she was a little reticent about getting one from a street cart. She used to oversee street vendors when she was at the Parks Department so she knew some terrible stories of uncleanliness. I convinced her that since they were vegetarian it wasn’t as risky. Diana said “sometimes falafel has meat.” Not to my knowledge. I didn’t want to argue this with her so I just ignored it. She is the boss after all. She said just make sure the Department of Health certificate is current. Okay, I said, but I knew I wouldn’t look.
I made the 10 minute trek down Jamaica Avenueto the stand. “Two falafel sandwiches, please,” I said. “No falafel today,” the Arab vendor replied. I was flabbergasted and profoundly disappointed. I had been looking forward to this all day, and looking forward to my first decent meal in nearly four years in . But it wasn’t to be. Not today anyway. The vendor could not give me indication of when or how often he carried falafel. Later I thought that falafel is probably not too popular in this neighborhood; even though there are a lot of Muslims in Jamaica, most of them appear to be from South Asia rather than the Middle East , and there certainly are no Israelis around there. I called Diana and asked if I could get her something else. “What are you having?” I had bought I can of Progresso soup from Duane Reade with the $5.00 coupon I earned from spending over $100 there. She said she’d take a can of minestrone.
I’m still dying to have that falafel sandwich, but don’t know if I want to take the risk of walking all the way down there again to come up empty handed. Stay tuned for more in my quest to find something good to eat in Downtown Jamaica…
