Mamoun's
The runner-up for best-tasting falafel with 25% of the vote is:
Murray's Falafel
The runner-up for best value with 23% of the vote is:
Maoz Vegetarian
Here is the detailed break-out among the 5 locations included on the crawl:
Different routes varied in popularity and attendance:
The most popular route for respondents was Route #2, starting with Pita Joe:
The least popular route for respondents was Route #3, starting with Tahini:
About the respondents:
Just over 120 people attended the January Falafel Crawl
53 people submitted responses and voted for their favorite falafel locations
The gender split of respondents was 62% female and 38% male
Nearly half of all respondents live in Manhattan, with 41% living in either Brooklyn or Queens
89% of respondents rated their January Falafel Crawl experience with a "4" or "5" on a scale of 1-5; 38% of respondents specifically left positive feedback about their falafel crawl experience and the organization of the crawl
In contrast to last month's Hot Chocolate Crawl, nearly half of respondents visited all 5 locations of the January Falafel Crawl route
Due to dividing teams across 4 different routes, nearly all locations on the route received similar numbers of visitors (except for Murray's Falafel due to it being "higher-priced" and "too far out of the way" compared to other locations):
NYC Food Crawl attendance is heavily based on social networking: 32% of respondents heard about the January Falafel Crawl from Facebook, 26% heard from a friend, and 15% heard from an email source such as Gothamist, the Skint, and Nonsense list.
57% of respondents are members of the NYC Food Crawl Facebook Group
19% of respondents attended a previous NYC Food Crawl
45% of respondents would like to see NYC Food Crawl expand to additional boroughs or neighborhoods, with a strong preference for "Brooklyn," "Queens," "Flushing," "Astoria," and "Williamsburg."
Requested foods for future crawls from respondents include: tacos, sausage, ramen, curry, Vietnamese sandwiches, ice cream, bubble tea, cheesecake, cupcakes, pizza, cheeseburgers/sliders, french fries, pancakes, crepes, waffles, pudding, pastrami, brownies, cookies, dim sum, kabobs, nachos, sushi, hot dogs, hummus, bagels, pastries, gyros, grilled cheese, mac 'n cheese, egg rolls, knishes, pork buns, hot wings, empanadas and more.
Specific feedback about the organization of the crawl:
"Great time! Well planned route, too, I thought. I'm definitely excited to see what other crawls there might be."
"Having one person in charge of making sure everyone's headed in the right direction while they're distracted by good conversation is very helpful."
"I had a great time. Came on my own, didn't know anyone in the group, but ended up with a fantastic falafel touring crew."
"This was a fantastic evening all around. A big part of enjoying food is sharing the experience with other people, and this crawl proved an excellent opportunity to explore various takes on a street food staple with both close friends and new team mates alike. I eagerly await next month's crawl!"
"This was so much fun! Thanks for putting this together!"
"We only attended the first stop on our route because we didn't realize how busy each stop was going to be... I do understand the purpose of a food crawl, but we felt that the discounts provided by each vendor did not make up for the time we would have spent waiting (i.e. wouldn't mind paying the extra 25 cents to go on a less crowded night)."
"This is a great idea and was very well planned/executed!"
"Let's get a Google Map with the locations"
Editor's Note: We don't release the locations in advance, but you can view the Google map post-crawl here:
View Falafel Crawl in a larger map
Specific feedback about the food/locations:
"We skipped Murray's cause it had the most expensive falafel. It was also the last place on the list and we were done walking and eating for the night."
"Maoz's falafel had a nice spicy and crunchy taste to it. Pita Joe was the most underwhelming cause their falafel wasn't spicy and was less crunchy."
"Tahini had the best pita bread, but Maoz had the best overall food experience due to salad bar."
"Falafel quality about equal at Maoz and Murray's though they tasted different. I had never even heard of Murray's before this! Thanks."
"It would be great if in all the participating restaurants, you could step up and order the "crawl special" and they would know what you were talking about. After all the people who had already come before us, many of the vendors still acted confused about what we wanted...????!!!!"
