Soom Soom

I'm lucky to work in an area that is blessed by having lots of falafel options.  I love falafel and it's one of my favorite vegetarian dishes.  I didn't plan on having a Meatless Monday yesterday but it ended up that way when I decided on Soom Soom for lunch and a Greek salad for dinner.

Soom Soom in Midtown West is a tiny storefront with a couple of stools to stay & eat and a lot of takeout orders.  In addition to falafel sandwiches and salads, they have other Mediterranean items like sabich (sandwich with egg, eggplant, potato, hummus - like what A got at Taim) and burekas, and sides which include multiple types of fries.

Since it was my first time at Soom Soom, I decided to go with the original, which was a falafel sandwich with about 3 or 4 falafel balls in a wheat pita (you had a choice between white and wheat).  After you get your sandwich, you move on to the salad bar where you can pile on as much stuff as will fit in your pita. I got the tomato and cucumber salad, lots of seasoned onions, a pickled celery salad, artichokes, and a quinoa salad, before I thought my sandwich would overflow onto the counter.

This was a tasty sandwich.  The toppings were good, the falafel was well-flavored, and the sandwich was satisfying and filling. I really liked the onions, and the celery, quinoa and artichokes were unique. The only difficulty is that you only get one trip through the salad bar and it's not always easy to layer the salad bar toppings in with the falafel all the way to the bottom.  Pita breaks easily if you try to stretch it apart too much to add lots of salad! It's one reason I have switched to the salad bowl at Maoz -  so I can pile on as much salad as I want (since I love the salad bar).  The falafel salad option at Soom Soom is much more expensive than Maoz and breaks my $10 target, so I think I will just have to stick with the sandwich there.

I am very intrigued by the burekasabich (which is exactly what it sounds like) as I don't think I've seen this anywhere else.  Maybe I'll try that on a day that I'm really, really hungry and going to the gym.

Soom Soom has multiple locations but the one near me in Midtown is on 46th between 5th and 6th.