The Mango Lassie

Empanada Boy had a previous stint in New York City, a while before we met. At that time, he was a poor, single, college student working on two degrees and doing his best to fend for himself in the big, bad city. He eventually ended up moving to Park Slope in Brooklyn, but his first apartment was on the Upper West Side. Despite his relative poverty, he was a typical New Yorker and college student in that he rarely cooked for himself. Instead, he quickly identified the cheap, filling and delicious eateries in the immediate vicinity of his apartment. One of them was Alibaba a glatt kosher Yemenite-Israeli-run falafel restaurant, housed in a tiny nook of a space on Amsterdam and 85th Street. EB liked Alibaba so much that he was still singing its praises as the best falafel he’d tried when we moved here last year. Needless to say, I had to see what this place was all about.

As I’ve already mentioned, one of the most salient features of Alibaba is the restaurant’s tiny footprint. There is just enough room for a table with six seats and space for customers to walk up to the counter to order. Behind that counter, the kitchen seems even smaller. When the weather is warm enough the staff opens the front floor-to-ceiling window out onto the street. But even when it’s nice, the majority of customers gets delivery or take out. We sat down after ordering, and I got a good look at the restaurant’s crowded walls. A tiny sink offers a place to wash hands or fill up a plastic cup. Above it hang Jewish and Israeli posters, reviews from magazines and newspapers and lanterns that look like the were purchased in the shuk in Jerusalem.

As the guy behind the counter made our falafel, we got to fill up paper containers at the brightly colored salad bar to the right of the front counter. Beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplants, curried carrots and cabbage were among the many delicious looking items to choose from. We filled our containers to the brim and started eating the crisp, fresh and flavorful offerings while we waited for our sandwiches.

We both got falafel (though we have since returned and tried schwarma) with everything on it. EB got his in the homemade lafah, a large, round, fluffy flatbread. The sauces were delicious— the hummus garlicky, the tahini tangy and the hot sauce remarkably spicy. Roasted eggplant, tomatoes and lettuce added depth, freshness and crunch. And the falafel balls themselves were infused with peppercorns, caraway, saffron, cardamom and turmeric. The top ones were crisp and light, just as I like them. As I got to the bottom, the falafel balls were a bit mushier than I would have preferred, but the flavor was all there. These are falafel balls with the tastes of Israeli fried right into them.

The next time I make it to Alibaba’s I’d like to try some of their other specialties like the bourekas, kebabs or melawah (lightly fried dough with crushed tomatoes and a hard-boiled egg). But I can’t promise that I won’t cave to temptation and simply order the falafel again. As the college-aged Empanada Boy discovered, it’s pretty hard to resist.

Alibaba
515 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY 10024
212.787.6008