Falafelji in Lyons

As posted recently in Openings, the new addition to this area is underway and seems to have the wrinkles worked out. As a frequent eater of Med food for lunch downtown (Benjyehuda and Taza mainly) I was curious if this could hold up (since my experiences at NafNaf have been less than stellar). Totally blown away is all I can say. Very flavorful and the portions were very generous. They have a delicious roasted pepper hummus (along with traditional) and a few different side salad choices. The owner was very helpful and threw a bunch of taster samples at me to try. The falafel was great, but the shwarma was killer! If you are in the area, give it a go.....I know, Zaca is across the street and hard to pass up, but you won't be sorry. 3910 S Harlem (across from the Shell)

I've been here 5 times since opening, and plan to go often as I work very close to there three days a week. I have been waiting for it to open since I saw the sign. I've found the food to be wildly inconsistent, and very average for the most part. I've had the roasted red pepper hummus twice, and both times it was just there. The baba G has improved, (I get it every time,) but it's almost as if it's a faux smoke flavor being used. The falafel, I dig - small and well fried. Not particularly always bursting with flavor, but I've liked them every time I've gone. Their toum (garlic mayo as they call it) was sensational the first time I tried it, and barely tasted of garlic the next. I've gotten three meat combo plates - two times all meats were dried out leather, but once, when I asked them to simply give me a meat combo plate with only the meat that wasn't dried out and overcooked, did I get anything with meat that was anything other than dried out blah.

I'm not bashing the place, just putting in my honest 2 cents. I want them to flourish, and be wildly successfull, and I will keep going back because of proximity. They are very new and I'm hoping they can get it together. If I wanted good stuff, I'd happily skip right past this place, and head to the joints a few miles south on Harlem. Again, I am NOT bashing this place, but I haven't seen a reason for great enthusiasm just yet. Someone in the kitchen knows what they are doing, I've seen glimpses of greatness, but it hasn't all come together yet in my experiences. I'll go back extremely soon after seeing the previous post. The ppl there are extremely nice, and I will say that the habanero sauce is pretty good, and the rice as well. The better half also loves the grilled veggie salad that comes with the platters, and I had some really great tabbouleh there once out of three tries - the other two tries were just kinda blah as well. Great idea for the area, and I will be their number one fan if they start churning out stuff at a high level. It's just not there for me yet. Again, please don't mistake this post as me bashing this joint at all - great ppl working there, a few things I've had were really good, but most of them were just blah - kinda like nothing you couldn't get at whole foods. I haven't been in about a week and a half, so maybe they've turned it up a notch since last time. I'll get back very soon (I planned to anyway - only reason I haven't gone this week is because of some dental work on wed. - as my toofers feel much better today, I rocked some las asadas for lunch instead of falafelji- generally consistently better than Zacatacos for steak, and they have the salsa negra now.)

Falafelji
3910 S Harlem Ave
Lyons, IL 60402
(708) 447-4757

Went back with some enthusiasm after stout's post. I went with what I guess would be called my standard-ish order:

A meat combo plate with kifta, chicken and beef schawarma, rice, grilled veggies, baba ghannouj, and two sauces- tahini, and habanero:


The rice is good, the baba g has gotten much better - tahini and habanero sauce - still great. Sadly, the meats were again, pretty lackluster. My guess is that whoever is manning the grill when I order, is someone who doesn't care for any meats pulled before a well done state. That's fine if that's their thing. I just will shy away from the meats until I hear some better reports. This kifta though - JERKY. Times like this I wish I had a dog to give this to:


Oh well, on to better things:
The Mezze Plate, which is a combo of regular and red pepper hummus, baba g, tabbouleh, grilled veggie salad, 4 grape leaves, 4 falafel, and a salad choice. It came in a bunch of sep containers. The notables:


This house salad has torshi mixed into it. A nice touch. I dig this.


The stuffed grape leaves were phenomenal the first time I tried them. I had been lukewarm on them in subsequent visits. Tonight's were abysmal. The seasoning was the same as always, but the rice inside was mush. Like mashed potato consistency.


I've enjoyed the falafel on each visit. Tonight's were the best I've had there. Expertly made, well fried, super crunchy exterior, and perfectly contrasting fluffy interior. Well spiced, too. EXCELLENT.

The standouts of this meal make me think that someone really knows what they are doing, or, are learning how translate their home recipes into a commercial offering. Still some work to do, IMO, but there is some real promise.
Good Baba G, good falafel, and good rice are a great start, imo. This place is still trending up, imo, but still hasn't come completely together. The great things I have had from there lead me to believe that there is some hope for this place to be really good in the not too distant future.

Aforementioned glimpses of greatness seem to be about right - the shop is not particularly well organized or signed, the chef had to be called in from a smoke break, and there was an acrid, visible eggplant haze in the place from baba ghanoush-making - but then the falafel was the best I've had since Jerusalem (even formed traditionally, just not quite as creamy or herbal, but perfectly cooked in new oil), the baba was very rich, and the fattoush was fresh, sour, studded with torshi and sumac, and just missing the pita (an oversight rather than design, I reckon). I will happily try out more of the menu whenever I end up coming north from the Stevie.

Do they have active spits for the shawerma? I did not see any in the front area, but the reports and pictures suggest a current, crisp product, which is my preference. Thanks to stout and seebee for the heads-up.

I've been meaning to update with accolades from my latest visit on the Sunday before last. We had a very decent meal from F-ji. The only disappointment was the stuffed grape leaves which again, were filled with rice flavored mush. Very unappealing to the entire household. Everything else was really good. Baba G still had an odd smokey flavor - it tasted like the smoke was fabricated, but I won't rule out a bad palate. They have also switched from the lavash style flatbread, to regular old pocket pita. The young lady manning the register noted that there were too many complaints, so they just switched to appease the masses. I like both, but I do prefer regular old pita. The stuff they had before was paper thin - niceley pliable, but it turned into cardboard within seconds after loss of heat. It just wasn't the greatest option. All meats we got in our combo plate were grilled nicely, not a bit of shoe leather to be found. Even the grilled chicky breast was tender and juicy. Our baseline order from here (for two hungry adults, and one ever increasingly hungry 4 yr old:)

Mezze plate (basically a veggie combo with a bunch of stuff including 4 pretty small but generally delicious falafel.)

Meat combo plate (includes your choice of three meats, rice, and a dip (we always pick baba g)
For sauces, the habanero and tahini sauces are a must. Their "garlic mayo" went from an awesome toum / muthawama, to whipped potatoes with no garlic at all, to mayo with garlic mixed in. The other sauces are for other people to hopefully enjoy, imo.

Two years later: I'd eaten there happily a few times last calendar year. Lately, Yelp had been reporting this place closed, but it looked active on my drives past, so I visited last week and it was grand, so I sent a note to correct the errant closure listing (does Yelp do, like, any actual research?)

The falafel here is still the most similar to what I've had overseas, down to the shape and texture. It's cooked to order and hard to pass up. Tabbouleh is fresh but not complex in the dressing or dicing. Baba is still intensely smoky, chunky, and satisfying. The grape leaves are usually served piping hot and have some serious game when the batch is just coming out. Shawarma, no issues. Sauces and bread have weakened slightly over time, but are still perfectly fine - the impression I get at Falafelji is fresh, scratch, to order, just not really assertively flavored. But I'm most commonly eating this cuisine at The Nile (Hyde Park) and Zaytune (Bridgeport), which are salted and sumacked and garlicked up to intense levels (which I love most of the time), or Taza, where the house bread pushes everything over. I still think this place could be of moderate interest tor those who were willing to drive several miles farther down Harlem to Al Mawal (RIP).

The closed Yelp listing is most likely due to the satellite store he opened in downtown LaGrange a while ago - it closed pretty quickly thereafter.

The Lyons location rocks, I still try to get there regularly and it never disappoints.

Lol -
I'm picking up from there tonight (Cinco De Mezze?)

And yes, the closure is prolly showing from the LaGrange outpost's closing.
While I want this place to be as spectacular as the joints a few miles south on Harlem, it usually comes up short, but not enough for me to bypass when the mood strikes for Middle Eastern in the area. Their falafel do not disappoint. Most things are solid enough, just rarely are they great - which, for the immediate area's lack of competition, should suffice. Our new baseline for DIY sammich night:

Large Baba G
Jerusalem salad topped with chicken and pickles
A bunch of falafel
Order of Tabouleh
A whole bunch of habanero sauce.

We run about 50/50 for ok / pretty good. Generally when the tabouleh is fresh and lemony, and the chicken is not overcooked, we're in for a treat. The wild fluctuations in quality though - definitely a thing of the past. I think they've hit a pretty good stride here.