Who's got better falafel than Habibi?

Lemme know ...and I´ll be there tout de suite!

My missus and I stumbled upon Habibi tonight in San Telmo ...and man!  I cannot remember ever eating better falafel.

The unassuming little Arab "hush puppies" don´t usually get much respect ...and I never saw a falafel that seemed to care what I think.  Like a lot of simple ancient foods, though, when they are good you immediately know why people didn´t stop making them 1000 years ago.

Habibi's tonight were perfection: a nice fried crunch but not oily, the right sort of tender graininess in the chickpea interior but nothing neither floury nor chunky.  Spices that do the magical thing that should be done with spices;  I knew that there was garlic as well as cumin, some herballyness and although it couldn´t possibly have done its thing without pepper ...I couldn't pick out any one particular note.  Just the way it should be.

Perfect.  Sometimes there´s just no better way to describe something.  And perfect for some of their smoky babaganoush, the closest I found to homemade away from home.  The dip of smoked red peppers sprinkled with tiny crumbs of walnuts was an ace wingman along with fresh pita toasted to a bit of a crunch.

All the portions were perfectly generous ...except for the falafel.  We sent back for more and called it a night.

The entreés looked enticing ...but we never got around to it.  No regrets, we´ll be back for more.