Popular Kosher Food Truck Moshe’s Falafel Opens Upper West Side Restaurant – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Moshe’s Falafel has been making mostly kosher falafel since it opened as a Diamond District food cart in 1981: fresh and fully loaded, with many ingredients imported from Israel.

But now, Moshe’s Falafel will be popping chickpea balls in front of a brick-and-mortar storefront. Last week, business partners Moshe Mizrachi and David Itah opened 142 West 83rd St. on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A highly anticipated Moshe’s Falafel restaurant opened in

“People wanted us to open so many times before. This time we had the time and we found the right place for us,” Ita said on the opening day of New York Jewish Week on July 25. “There are a lot of Jews here. It’s a beautiful society. So we decided to start here.”

When Mizrachi opened his first Moshe’s Falafel 43 years ago — first as an ill-fated restaurant in the midsection of West 46th Street, then as a successful food cart parked at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 46th Street — “very few people knew what? There was falafel,” Mizrachi told New York Jewish Week. “It took several years to build— [for people] To be exposed to falafel and eat it.

Now, though, falafel is a citywide hit—in fact, Brooklyn’s Falafel Tanami, a small kosher joint in Midwood, has been named to the New York Times’ list of the city’s 100 best restaurants two years in a row. . There are dozens of falafel places to choose from, including Mamoun’s Falafel, a small Syrian chain that opened its first restaurant in Greenwich Village 50 years ago, as well as Taim, the falafel chain launched by Israeli chef Einat Admony. In 2005.

Two years ago, Moshe’s Falafel — which Jewish food doyenne Joan Nathan named “the best stretch pushcart in New York City” in her 1994 book “Jewish Cooking in America” ​​— added a second food truck to its stand. Although it is often rented out for private events, it is regularly parked in and around Times Square.

Ari Senderovich, a 30-something Manhattanite, was one of the many New Yorkers who flocked to Moses’ Upper West Side outpost on opening day. “They have some of the best falafel I’ve had in town,” he said. “It’s comparable to the falafel I had in Israel.”

The storefront news first surfaced in the spring. Elan Kornblum, founder of Great Kosher Restaurants Media Group, posted on Facebook about the restaurant’s coming forward on April 5, the same day as the earthquake in Manhattan. “Great Kosher Restaurants Foodies Earth Quaking Breaking Shattering News,” he wrote. “This will really shake up Manhattan.”

“Everybody’s excited about it,” Kornblum told New York Jewish Week. “They have a culture. Those who know and get it really enjoy it. “

Although Ita waited for the necessary permits — these days, Mizrachi is a more silent partner, as he spends his days studying and teaching at the local yeshiva — he built awareness in casual ways, such as posting on social media. Over the past few weeks, Ita has given away 2,000 free Moshe’s signature falafel-filled pita sandwiches with all the fixings, including tahini, chopped salad, hot sauce, French fries and pickles.

On July 10, the first day of the grant, Ita parked one of his two food trucks in front of the not-yet-open store. He planned to hand out free stuffed pitas from noon to 4 p.m. The truck ran out of food by 3:30 p.m.—despite the 90-degree heat, having served nearly 800 people. (Apparently, free food is something New Yorkers love to stand in line for.)

Over the next two weeks, Ita parked the falafel truck outside Jewish hot spots like Zabar’s, a Jewish grocery store on the Upper West Side, and in front of La Mamma del Gelato, which Anita started out of a kitchen in Netanya, Israel. Upper East Side.

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The medium-sized restaurant, which seats 18 and is decorated in the food truck’s signature herbaceous green, sells food similar to Moshe’s falafel carts: falafel, hummus, shawarma-spiced roasted cauliflower and a few side salads to go. Moving forward, all food sold from the truck, push cart and restaurant will be prepared in the restaurant’s kitchen.

Like many popular kosher restaurants of late — such as Guy Vaknin’s Zite, a Mexican restaurant, and BG Berhani’s Ethiopian-Israeli Zion Cafe — Moshe’s falafel is completely vegan. Their Iraqi Sabic sandwich, which traditionally comes with fried eggplant, pickles, hummus, tahini and hard-boiled eggs, is served without an egg. Even the mayonnaise used to bind their purple cabbage slaw is egg-free.

The secret to his decades of success, Mizrachi said, was following the advice his wife gave him when he first launched. “I asked my wife, may she rest in peace, how to do it so people will come back,” he said. “She said, ‘If you want people to come back, you have to give them the falafel route You would like to eat it.'”

He added: “Do you like it fresh? Yes. Would you like to clean it? Yes. Do you want it to be beautiful? Yes. You like oil [for frying the falafel balls] Should it be changed every day? Put it all together, she said, and it would make the best falafel.

“Everything is top notch,” Ita said. “The secret is that everything is new every day.”

The pita comes from Angel Bakery, a New Jersey bakery with origins in Jerusalem, and is heated before serving. The tahini is an Israeli brand, Har Bracha, and the crunchy pickles are also from Israel.

The restaurant is close to other kosher restaurants around the corner, including gluten-free specialists Modern Bread & Bagel and Tex-Mex Carlos & Gabby’s.

The hope is to open more locations in the city, “maybe eventually in other cities in the United States,” Ita said.

Riva Atlas lives three-and-a-half blocks from the new Moshe’s Falafel, and she expressed her delight at the storefront finally opening.

“I’m happy – I’m counting the days,” she said. “I love falafel. To be honest, I was very happy to walk in here and hear Hebrew at a time like this. It feels good when everything is going on in Israel.