Falafel

I have never been a fan of falafel. Years ago, my roommates made it in our apartment and the smell lingered for days. I thought it smelled like poop. A few years ago, J -- who adores chickpeas in anything -- made falafel at home. It also smelled like poop. My feelings about the smell of falafel are probably the same about J's and chicken feet. He doesn't like the smell of anise and me, I still am not sure what I don't like about it: cumin?

I've been watching Batman Begins. If you know me, you know I will watch a movie over and over and over again, especially when working at home, just to have familiar background noise. At some point, a (crooked) cop gets a falafel from a street vendor. After watching the movie probably ten times, I decided I wanted to try falafel again and started searching for a local place.

I found Falafel King which appeared to be the most popular place for falafel in town. The reviews about sushi scared me.

J and I actually tried to head there last Sunday, but their hours had changed from all the menus I had found, and they were closed. So today, we made the trip out again.

Falafel King is owned by a cute Japanese couple who keep their shop very clean and organized. We each ordered a falafel sandwich which is a pretty good size for $3.95. It comes with freshly fried falafel balls (fried in a wok) topped with diced tomatoes and cucumbers and two sauces, probably a thinned tahini and I have no idea what the other one was. They cut off the top of a pocketed pita and put everything in side. It's a good system.

As I bit into my good-sized falafel sammich, I was reminded of the flavor that I had never liked years ago. I still don't know what it is, but it was subtle and the bitter reminder was gone after the first bite. The falafel was moist. The toppings were fresh and yum. If I have it again, I would ask for more of the veggies interspersed in with the falafel balls. It was good, but perhaps missing something.

I noticed that other folks who came in all ordered "the mixed," a sammich with both falafel and chicken shawarma. Perhaps I should try that.

On to the sushi. I did not get sushi, but I did look closely at all the fish offerings. The prices are very good, and the fish does look excellent. There was a Japanese man eating sushi when we arrived. I think I will try the sushi next time. I have read somewhere that the owner is a sushi chef by trade.

This made me think about something J and I have talked about before. While I know that owning a restaurant or any food industry company is incredibly time- and work-intensive, I cannot help but think about it from time to time. However, my specialities, if you can call them that, are certainly not Chinese. I should call them my passions. My passions are Italian and French.

I am one of those people who wants to see a Chinese chef in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. I want to see a Japanese chef preparing my sushi. I don't know why; I know that people can specialize in all sorts of cuisines. Julia Child never even started to cook until she was 35 and this California native is probably (one of) our most well known French chef(s) today.

But anyway, this long stream-of-consciousness ramble was just to tell you that I get a feeling of wow! sitting there thinking about this Japanese couple who has created a business in falafel and have done well enough in falafel to spread out to sushi, a highly perishable and expensive cuisine. It makes me wonder if I could ever cook a non-Chinese cuisine and have people accept it.

Sometimes I wonder if I could sell meals. You know, two osso bucco for us, two more for someone else. It's one of those things that floats through my mind sometimes.