Monday, November 26, 2012

Grillicious

32 S 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(267) 324-3936
Website

Grillicious is another venture in the same location as the short lived falafel place “CRISP”. After my meal at Crisp a while ago, I was hoping that something better was in store for this great spot. Grillicious did not disappoint, and even improved on some of its predecessor's missteps.


They stuck with the same build-your-own setup, but added meat to the menu of protein options. Big fan of that decision.


The evolution of the ordering process is laid out below.


I went with a flatbread sandwich, and a salad bowl.



The salad bowl is HANDS DOWN the way to go. You get more food, AND it's served with a flatbread anyway.


The salad comes with your choice of ingredients, I chose tomato cucumber salad, onion, parsley, and feta. My protein was the beef kefta kabob, and it also came with falafel - a generous foursome. There is a number of sauces/dressings to choose from and the Amba Wamba sounded like a good one - their take is a pickled mango-chipotle cream that added a nice tang.


Because just one dressing is never enough, I opted for two; although the spicy tahini was a bit under spiced, the amba wamba held strong. I will also say, in contrast to Crisp's execution, the falafel was very good this time around. The crispy exterior gave way to a moist, light, well seasoned interior. A major improvement on the previous version.


The kafta was delicious. A light and crunchy, tender and juicy, slightly smoky (so many descriptors, I know) meat puck added a rich contrast to the healthiness of the salad, and when taken with the falafel and flatbread, made for a hearty meal. At $1 more than the flatbread, it is definitely worth the investment.


It's not that the flatbread was bad, it just didn’t have the substance of the salad. The bread itself was tender and nicely spongy with a smack of char-grilled flavor. The marinated boneless chicken was meat pulled from the thighs, and made for a delicious (and, yes, grillicious) filling.


The ingredients are mostly the same across the board, and I did still enjoy the flatbread. But for the value, I have to recommend the salad. Filling and delicious, go for extra sauce(s) on the side as their tiny to-go containers don’t thoroughly take care of the salad unless used en-mass.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am pretty sure that the falafels are exactly the same as Crisp, as it is the same owners. They just re-branded.

Philly Phoodie said...

Yea I know its the same owners, but these were entirely different than what I got at Crisp. Could just be they hadn't been sitting for some time, or maybe they changed the recipe, had a more skilled falafel maker, who knows. These were 100% better than their predecessors.

Anonymous said...

I have to be honest, I only had the falafel there once when they first opened and I thought it was good. I had numerous free ones walking by though, that were excellent, I'm guessing those jobs were right out of the fryer.