A GOOD sandwich is hard to find.
Once you find a reliable spot, you need to treasure it and hold it close.
This might go some way to explaining the enduring popularity of Hope Street’s Falafel to Go. Not including drinks, it does three things.
It does a falafel wrap, tabbouleh and hummus. That is it. It does them extremely well.
No bigger than a phone box (remember those) the single member of staff makes falafel wraps to order. The branding outside boasts that theirs is the best falafel wrap in the city.
There are those South Side folk who will insist that Kurdish Street Food, which sells – you guessed it – Kurdish street food, will do you the best Middle Eastern-Mediterranean grub in Glasgow.
Being neither a South Sider, nor someone who has ever been to the Alison Street institution, I am going to have to back my providers of yesterday’s (and the day before’s) lunch.
The falafel is soft without being dry and falls apart unlike the stodgy, sticky stuff you find in supermarket imitations.
If you order, as I did, the wrap with all the trimmings, you get chopped tomatoes, lettuce, shredded parsley and a slather of tahini sauce (sesame seeds ground into a paste).
The speedy and friendly service cannot be faulted and I regard it as a key part of any Falafel to Go trip to overhear some characters chatting while you wait.
For my tastes, the wrap is a little dry. I prefer a real lashing of tahini sauce, which really is a matter of taste because I know many find the flavour overpowering.
This is easily rectified with the purchase of a small tub of hummus, which will more than meet your dipping needs. They were out of the tabbouleh when I visited on Wednesday afternoon, so I will have to go from memory but I recall it as a fresh and tasty side salad on the occasions I have had it, which is not all the often because this really is food meant to be eaten on the move. It’s easy, cheap and delicious and, seeing as it’s better and open later than most other food outlets in the city centre (other than those warriors that are kebab shops) it is your best bet for a munch at virtually any time of the day, after it opens its serving hatch at 10.30am.
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