When I first stepped in to Foxy Falafel, located at the Raymond Avenue stop on the Green Line, I was very excited. Every characteristic of the restaurant seemed to point towards the type of restaurant I would enjoy. It was a small space, with only a couple of tables, but most of them were occupied. They had a nicely written and appealing looking menu that seemed to suggest they knew what they were doing: it was well planned with just enough variety to keep things interesting and keep customers coming back. They had a delicious sounding special of pulled pork on plantain tortillas, a smallish selection of local beers from great breweries.

If looks were everything, this place was going to be a success. My dining companions and I were excited for our falafel. But unfortunately, the visual appeal of Foxy Falafel was where my excitement ended. Upon looking at our food, we were immediately dismayed. We paid nine dollars for this sandwich and eleven for the salad? The portions were small and the falafel puny, but size doesn’t matter as long as the rest of the product is desirable. Unfortunately for Foxy Falafel, the quantity of the food wasn’t the only thing that this meal was lacking.

When you put the word falafel in your name, you better produce a fine falafel, and the one here was decent at best. They serve three options: the classic, made with fried chickpeas; the curry, spiced with curry powder; and a beet one. You can also get all three of these together as their stop light option (one is green, one yellow, and the other red, get it?). I’ll start with the good news; the texture was great! These falafels had a really nice crispy exterior and the insides were soft, hot, and fluffy.

Unfortunately, the most important part of the falafel, the flavor, was lackluster. The classic falafel had very little flavor, mainly just tasting like a fried ball of blandness. The curry one was considerably better, if only because of the addition of the dominant curry powder flavor. I was excited by what I thought would be a unique flavor in their beet falafel, but I didn’t taste anything that resembled the sweetness of beets in that little fried ball.

Perhaps, I held out hope, the complimentary parts of the meal would at least be more satisfying than the falafel. The falafel sandwich came with tomato, cucumber, and some pickled cabbage. All of these were fine, though nothing special. The salad came served over mixed greens that tasted as if they were straight out of a bag of spring salad mix and the highlights were the roasted red pepper bits and the feta cheese.

These both came with a tzatziki sauce, a typical Greek yogurt and cucumber sauce, that when done right, can improve nearly anything it touches. However, though Foxy Falafel’s sauce wasn’t bad, it certainly wasn’t great. It had the requisite creaminess, but lacked the tangy, refreshing flavor that makes tzatziki so delicious.

Ultimately, Foxy Falafel was not a bad meal, and perhaps I have been spoiled by Shish’s quality, but after hearing many positive reviews and considering the price we paid for a relatively small meal, I definitely wanted better. I think Jordan Lim ’15 best summed up our experience at Foxy Falafel when he said, “the restaurant had a great vibe and some top notch décor, but the food was a let-down.”

If it were half the price, I might recommend Foxy Falafel as a decent place to go for a craving of falafel, but with the price you pay, and the need to travel, even if it’s only on the green line, if you’re in the mood for falafel, stick to Shish.

Foxy Falafel
791 Raymond Avenue
(651) 888 – 2255
Monday: 11a.m. – 3p.m.
Tuesday – Saturday: 11a.m. – 8p.m.
Closed Sundays