While hummus, falafel and shwarma are familiar names on the many Middle Eastern menus in the city, we were curious to see what additions Falafel's had made to its new menu. The traditional shwarma has been deconstructed, and the good ol' hummus, too, we learnt has been given a healthy makeover
Mushroom Shawarma
Mushroom Shawarma
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While hummus, falafel and shwarma are familiar names on the many Middle Eastern menus in the city, we were curious to see what additions Falafel's had made to its new menu. The traditional shwarma has been deconstructed, and the good ol' hummus, too, we learnt has been given a healthy makeover.
Feeling the need to get our quota of healthy food, we popped in at their Phoenix Marketcity outlet to sample the fare. Let's start with the beverage menu — the mint coolers now are accompanied by yoghurt shakes. So we order the banana caramel shake priced at '130. The shake comes with no sugar, but with a generous amount of crunchy muesli and a dose of caramel. Deliciously smooth and with just the right amount of sweetness, it's almost equivalent of a meal, and makes for a healthy breakfast pick-me-up (well, that's if you don't mind the vanilla ice cream seamlessly blended into it).
Roasted Beetroot Hummus
Next came the hummus platter in three different flavours — carrot, beetroot and greenpeas — each for '200. The hummus is served with pickled veggie, spicy schug sauce (a Yemeni hot sauce) and your choice of pita pocket. Here, the beetroots have been marinated with thyme and then roasted. While the beetroot and greenpeas weren't too different from what is already available in the market, we particularly liked the carrot hummus which is zesty, mildly spicy tossed with olive oil.
It went well with their in-house preparation, the Zatar Khubz — an Arabic flatbread which is a soft dough, which when toasted, puffs up to form a neat pocket. These were soft and fluffy and could make for great sandwich wraps.
The same has been used for the Pizza Chicken Pocket, which is served with American cheese sauce, pizza sauce, iceberg lettuce and marinated chicken in tandoor. The taste is exceptional. But just a warning — it can be a messy affair. There's no mayonnaise, but we don't miss it, because the American cheese sauce makes sure there is enough richness.
It would be considered sacrilege to go to a Lebanese joint and not try the shwarma. The joint has introduced more vegetarian items in this category to cater to the overall demand for healthier food. The mushroom shwarma ('160) comes with toum (traditional garlic sauce) and schug (spicy sauce). The mushrooms are well marinated, but this one is not for the delicate palate. It made us run for our tissue.
Their experimentation is reflected well in the Makhani Pie Pizza ('220), wherein the khubz bread is served with hummus, garlic sauce, lettuce, pickled veggies and spicy schug sauce. It's a massive bread laid out with paneer butter masala. The portion is large, and cannot be consumed by one person.
As for the sides, they have the nachos ('150), which is their take on the Mexican classic. If you think about traditional nachos, you imagine the chips all greasy and cheesy, but then here, it's full of bright flavours of hummus and toum. And you thought, there'd be no way these two could hang out.
The crunchy pita chips are topped with hummus, garlicky yoghurt dip and the firecracker sauce (a chef's special sauce that its maker Chef Akil refuses to divulge its ingredients). We like that instead of jalapeños, it comes with a generous amount of olives. We'd give a thumbs up to this one.
Overall, we quite liked the makeover. There may have been a few downers like an unwelcome extra dose of chilli here and there. But as far as giving it a healthy and tasty spin is concerned, they manage to tick most of the boxes. So, next time you head to Falafel, you can be assured of a guilt-free binge.
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