• CLOSED: ChickPeaDX

  • (1)
    7

    Closed

  • White Vegetarian
Vegan-friendly
Mediterranean
Beer/Wine
Take-out
Middle Eastern

Pacific northwest inspired falafel, sandwiches, salads, and pitas. Est. 2013 as a food cart operating at 6550 N Greenwich Ave, then opened this brick-n-mortar location in Jul 2015. Casual setting. Reported closed, Jan 2019.


Venue map for ChickPeaDX
© OpenStreetMap contributors

1 Review

First Review by Rob D

Rob D

Points +130

Vegan
07 Nov 2015

Mediocre Falafel and Indifferent Service

I had read great things about ChickPeaDX and was really excited to finally have a meal there. I'll cut to the chase and state upfront that it was a big disappointment all around. It started out with the person who took our order - not rude, but certainly not welcoming - I almost felt as if I was bothering him by asking questions about the menu. Maybe the food would be better than the service? Not really.

The best item we ordered was the fried cauliflower. It was overly salted and mushy, but the flavor was good. But the big test of any falafel joint is the falafel itself. I haven't found many places on the west coast that do a truly great falafel, certainly nothing that compares to the standard setting falafel found at New York's Taim or Moshe's. But good falafel can be found, even here in Portland at the vegan friendly Nicholas.

So how did the falafel at ChickPeaDX stand up? I've had worse, but I've had much better. The exterior of the balls were fairly crispy, but not crispy enough. The interior was a bit too firm and the flavor a bit tame. The good news is that it's served in a solid pita with some tasty fried eggplant, cabbage slaw and carrot ribbons. The carrot ribbons are a welcome non-traditional addition, except they need to be cut shorter. The ribbons are so long that one of my first bites of the sandwich ended up pulling out most of them. Cutting them shorter would eliminate this problem and I'd have carrots in the first and last bites.

But therein lies the problem with ChickPeaDX; by the time I got down to the last bites, I asked myself why I was still eating it and put it down. When I get a good falafel sandwich I find myself plowing through it and sometimes ordering a second one. A sandwich has got to be pretty mediocre if I'm not even going to finish it.

One note about the location of ChickPeaDX: It's in a building with several other restaurants that share common indoor and outdoor seating. While we were eating we saw people around us getting some really great looking food from one of the other restaurants that had many vegan options. As we walked out, we wished we could have a do over and skip the falafel for something way better. I feel like I'm being generous giving ChickPeaDX three stars, but since there's no option for half stars, I'm rounding up.

Pros: Few

Cons: Many




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