Maoz Review

My work cafeteria so rarely offers inspiring enough options that I almost always default to the salad bar. But I often think, I could get something tastier and cheaper if I went outside. So on this day, I decided to try the newly opened Maoz Vegetarian just down the street for lunch. Maoz is an international chain serving primarily falafel pita sandwiches.

The place is tiny and there was a line out the door. I figured it would move quickly enough given that this is basically fast food. I was wrong about that. Because it was my first - and could possibly be my only - visit, I decided to go all out and try the Junior Meal deal: Junior Maoz sandwich with Belgian fries and a drink.

I ordered and paid first and got my drink. Then the guys behind the counter are supposed to have receipts telling them what to make, but they didn't have it together and had to ask me for my copy of the receipt to put together a wheat pita with lettuce and falafel. This was handed to me in a paper sheath at which point I moved along the salad bar choosing among a variety of pickled vegetables and sauces to add. At the end of the counter, another guy took my sandwich back to put into a waiting to-go bag. The glitch here was that the fries weren't ready and I had to wait for what seemed like a long few minutes in the narrow space.

Finally, back to the office I went with my lunch combo. The falafel was pretty tasty and it was nice to be able to customize my sandwich, though there wasn't much room to get a lot into that pita pocket. The fries were just okay and if I were to do it over, I would just stick to the sandwich. With the falafel being fried, the fries were just too much grease to handle at once. Nevertheless, the corner of 7th Avenue and 40th Street could have done a lot worse.