CLOSED: Falafel Veggie

Falafel Veggie is a new vegetarian fast food restaurant on the top floor of the City's shopping centre/mall in Nisantasi.

The menu is based around variations of falafel, salad, pitta bread and hummus. If you've ever been to the Maoz chain of falafel places, it's very similar, except that you choose the options from the salad bar instead of helping yourself. Luckily the salad is not just restricted to lettuce/tomato, but has at least 15 different options including spicy garnishes, tomato sauce and roasted aubergines etc. If you opted for the "Falafel veggie", i.e. the filled pitta bread, then it's finished off with a few more falafels and a dollop of hummus or tahini on top.

So all the options are vegetarian and mostly everything seems vegan also, except there is a "Sabih" dish which looks like the pitta bread but with the addition of a slice of egg in it.

I ordered the pitta bread and then (being hungry!) tried out the Veggie burger. They were both delicious. In some ways, the veggie burger is more surprising, because it's more like a giant falafel/hummus burger with garnishing, and it's really tasty too.

The seating area is small but fine, and I'm guessing that they would probably also do take-out if you wanted but I didn't ask. One thing is that most of the menus and other signage are mostly in Turkish, but they've designed them well with pictures and it's fairly obvious what everything is to a non-Turkish speaker.

One thing I would love here (having been to Maoz quite a bit) would be an option of french fries/belgian style fries as a side dish, but what they have already is great so can't really complain.

Falafel's selection is big, tasty and portions are big enough to keep you going. Highly recommended.

falafel veggie is pretty straightforward. nothing mind-blowing about it, but it's decent falafel, and the price is good. if you're nearby and hungry, it's worth the stop, but don't go out of your way.