'falafel's'

three enterprising israelis with three generations of experience in the running of restaurants and having fast food joints at new york,europe and israel have now set up at mumbai at lamington road,gowalia tank and colaba, fast food joints offering falafel.

falafel is an arabic word meaning peppers.these are made out of chickpeas which are ground and deepfried and converted into small balls.the three musketeers call their eating place a hummus house.hummus is a vegetarian puree of chickpeas which is supposed to be very nutritious.many spices and herbs are used which besides adding to the aroma and flavour also have nutritional and digestive values.

i had seen this modern and spanking new restaurant last week while returning from my office and decided to try it out very soon. our daughter l and grandaughter r were visiting us over the weekend and after having had a big brunch we decided to go out for some light snacks later in the day. it was the right time to experiment with falafel's. i must say that it was a very enjoyable experience. i have had falafel several times before in dusseldorf where i visit a greek restaurant for a vegetarian meal. they would always offer me pitta bread,hummus and some vegetables like potato and aubergine and a superb combination of spices and herbs nicely cooked with rice. i was, therefore, quite aware of what was in store.

we liked the pitta bread and falafel combo. like the omnipresent wada pav of mumbai, the falafel was sandwiched between two pieces of pitta bread.the combination had a great taste. while l chose to top the falafel with a cold lemonade,i preferred to have a pepsi. it was the right drink to have after a light lunch. the ambience is excellent. the layout is neat and crisp with high stools and long tables for three persons to sit on either side. on the mezzanine floor there are about a dozen tables laid out but they were full. the service was very courteous.

falafel's is probably one of the latest fast food joints to have come up in south mumbai.non veggies may not be very happy that this colaba joint serves only veg falafel.it calls itself a veg hummus house.when i asked the manager as to why did they have this as a only veg joint,he replied that they had done a market research and the study indicated that a only veg falafel fast food joint would have very good customer response. i was a bit surprised. colaba is not matunga or mulund having a large south indian or gujerati population. in colaba ,you have a potpourri of people from different communities,cultures and nationalities. there are many foreigners too. i wonder whether the study was off the mark for selecting coloba for a veg falafel place. time alone will tell.

anyway, i am very happy that we have a fastfood falafel joint within walking distance from our home. falafel's also offer home delivery. what more could one ask for? and by the way for the two of us, the combo cost came to rs 190. that was cool.