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PrintMore garlic, please: O'Falafel
No cuisine does fast food better than the Middle East—shawarma, gyros, falafel, souvlaki—all are healthier for you, easier to eat on the run and, face it, usually tastier, than America’s favorite hand foods, the hamburger and hot dog. Pita is the most ingenious food container yet invented, making sliced bread seem like a lame idea.
So we were thrilled that a new Middle Eastern restaurant opened within reasonable lunch distance of the office and further thrilled at the modest prices and really good falafel, a dish that’s hard to find in Salt Lake.
And even though the restaurant’s name, O’Falafel, initially evoked unpleasant images of Bill O’Reilly’s falafal-gate incident, the stronger sensory impressions of fragrant red lentil soup, grilled chicken and squash in cinnamon-scented sauce, kofteh and mujadareh are already overpowering the memory of that media mess. 
O’Falafel is not a fancy place; it’s simpler and less service-oriented than Mazza, for instance. You place your order at the counter and your food is delivered to the table. No white tablecloths here. But there’s a major mural of the Pyramids on one wall and, like I said, the aroma alone creates an ambience.
Whether a restaurant is successful or not depends on a hundred factors added together—and great food is not the primary one. So although I have eaten at many better Middle Eastern restaurants than O’Falafel, this is a restaurant that’s already on my weekly lunch run and I bet that’s true for a lot of working people near SugarHouse. Especially in the middle of the day, proximity counts for more than anything else.
And I haven’t explored the menu fully, either. The Armenian pizza’s crust was too soft, almost doughy, and the hummus was too bland—I want more garlic, please, even at a working lunch.
But the namesake sandwich holds a couple fresh-fried patties plus yogurt, tomatoes and fresh cabbage—healthy, tasty, quick, it’s an ideal meal.
So I wonder why don’t we have any drive-through falafel joints?
O’Falafel
790 E. 2100 South, SLC,
801-487-7747
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