Oasis: The Falafel Joint

Oasis: The Falafel Joint
http://www.oasisfalafel.com/
206 N. Linn Street, Iowa City, IA
QISA (3.5, 3, 3, 3), $4-8, Vegetarian-Friendly

I love falafel. I love everything about them: the warming spices, the pita bread encasing them, the myriad of sauces, and the nearly infinite possibility of toppings. I especially love the look on peoples' faces when I drizzle hot sauce over an already spicy blend of fried chickpeas, cumin, pepper, and magic.

Needless to say, I take my falafel very seriously. I have very, very little tolerance for falafel poorly done.

Iowa City, early January, on one of the coldest days of the year provided me a great day to eat falafel. It was also a good day to test out Iowa City’s newest falafel restaurant Oasis. If the falafel balls didn’t satisfy on a blistery, blustery cold day like this, they would never, ever satisfy.

Oasis was started in 2004 by two Israeli ex pats, friends Naftaly Stramer and Ofer Sivan, who lamented at the time, “falafel was nowhere to be found and vowed to right this wrong.” The fact that one had just left the tech industry and the other had just completed a degree in engineering certainly makes for an unlikely culinary origin story, but I fully understand their passion and drive. If I had any entrepreneurial spirit and risk tolerance, I would take over Indiana with an army of falafel stands and push for nationwide domination of the fast casual restaurant segment. But I digress.

The falafel sandwich and fries called to me; correction, they demanded my attention. I ordered the platter with no consideration for my feeble attempt at dieting. The falafel was served in standard pita with hummus and cucumber salad. The condiments bar included green cabbage salad with caraway and carrots, red cabbage salad, pepperoncinis, tahini, and green hot sauce. I selected most of the available options to decorate my sandwich. The falafel were good, solid, and serviceable. They were crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and flavorful without too much heat or salt. I would definitely order them again. I would also tell my diet to take a flying leap and order the fries again, which were fresh, crispy, and cut to a medium thickness.

The owners of Oasis understand that even in a college town, they must educate an unenlightened public. Their Website contains a Cuisine Guide with pictures and descriptions of falafel, hummus, baba ganoush, madjadra, cous cous, tabouli, kebabs, baklava, and the other delicacies possibly foreign to the Iowa plains.

The restaurant is not perfect. For example, their regular coffee was bad to mediocre at best, and did nothing for my interest in the Wake Up Iowa City brand. It is possible that their Turkish coffee is a different animal altogether, but unfortunately I can’t speak to that.

However, the small restaurant has a personal feel, from its small size, to the cartoony mural on the kitchen blackboard, to the Credence Clearwater Revival music on the loudspeaker. If you are in downtown Iowa City, definitely pay them a visit. But you might suggest they clean out their coffee pot while you are there.

ONE LAST THING:

This is probably as good a time as any to stand on my soapbox and tell America that they are mispronouncing “hummus”. According to both Dictionary.com and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, not to mention every Middle-Easterner I have ever met, the word is pronounced ‘hə-məs’ or ‘hu̇-məs’, but definitely not ‘huh-məs’. This is important. Get it right. It galls me that a major hummus brand in the U.S. (yes, Sabra, you know who you are) mispronounces their own product in their own television commercials. Imagine if you will, Dorito’s pronouncing the ‘l’ in tortilla chips. Go on, imagine it. Imagine a commercial with a hot male twenty-something with blond wavy hair telling you in his hip lingo about how cool you could be if only you would try their chip, how chicks would dig you, how the flavor would blow you away, how your credit rating would improve. And then he pronounces the ‘l’.

Like nails on a chalkboard. Welcome to my world.

Trumpet Blossom

Trumpet Blossom
http://www.trumpetblossom.com
310 E. Prentiss St., Iowa City, IA 52240
QISA (4, 4, 3.5, 4), $8-$18, Vegan

Way too often a restaurant aims for one adjective only to take additional unwanted modifiers. One might go for “fancy” and become “snooty” and “pretentious”. Another might go for “homey” and take on “old” and “worn”. Yet another might go for “comfort” and end up with “greasy” and “heart attack.”

When a restaurant squarely hits its target, you have to pay it respect. Trumpet Blossom goes for “rustic” and hits it dead on.

Everything about Trumpet Blossom speaks “rustic,” from the wooden benches and chairs to the hanging 19th century wooden spoons and gourds, antique cabinets, paisley quilted cloth napkins, and beverages in Ball jars. Roy Orbison crooning over the loudspeaker cinched the image for me.

“Sweet dream baby, how long must I dream?”

Trumpet Blossom serves a wide variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, from specialty cocktails like the Kombucha Gin & Tonic to smoothies and coffee drinks. I ordered the Cobra Verde, a citrus, ginger, and green coffee energy drink made by Wake Up Iowa City, a local organic coffee company. The beverage was bright and citrusy with a slight ginseng earthiness. It was an acquired taste to be sure, but I enjoyed its bright notes. I likely wouldn’t drink a Cobra Verde by itself, but it was an excellent accompaniment to the meal.

The soup of the day was a mushroom cauliflower rice soup that was hearty with plenty of umami flavor and made me feel like a child at home on a cold fall day. It was exactly the kind of soup you imagined your mother making for you…if only your mother had made homemade vegan soups. It was rustic plain and simple.

“Crying, over you. Crying, over you.”

The house red bean and oat veggie burger was served on grilled toast, which gave the sandwich a wonderful hearty crunch that balanced the softness of the burger. The burger was topped by a maple-bourbon BBQ aioli, caramelized onion, greens, and a pickled veggie slaw. The flavor of pickle inherent in most of the dishes brought to mind sunlight streaming through the windows, picnic baskets, and weekend mornings. In other words, it spoke of all things rustic.

“I’m going back some day, come what may to Blue Bayou.”

The spiced bread pudding I had for dessert was not the best bread pudding I have ever had, but it was very good and it was certainly original, tasting somewhere between a standard bread pudding and a spiced quick bread. It rounded out the, dare I say it, “rusticness” of the entire experience.

That Trumpet Blossom is an organic vegan restaurant may seem incongruous with its old-fashioned image. Yet, what is more in touch with our rustic roots and historic sensibilities than locally sourced vegetables free from modern pesticides?

I am eager to get back there to try out some of their other creative dishes, such as pizza with tofu-cheese and sausage style seitan, tempeh reubens, Iowa polenta cakes with maple-bourbon BBQ sauce, and roasted garlic tofu kabobs with ginger peanut sauce. With luck, I’ll get there on one of their live music nights. Or maybe, I’ll be there on a quiet weekday afternoon, warming myself from the wintry snow outside. Either way, it will undoubtedly feel like a big bowl of home.

Plus tofu.