"Forks are for wussies..."

On my daily walks with Emmett, we often wander over to the Jewish quarter located just an easy 10-minute stroll from our apartment. There are a plethora of kosher delis, bakeries, and falafel shops in that neighborhood alongside clothing and jewelry boutiques, neighborhood cafes and bakeries, and a branch of our beloved Amorino gelateria.

Pastry chef David Lebovitz recommended that we go to his favorite place to get falafel -- L’As du Falafel.

The first time we went was for lunch and the little restaurant was packed, not to mention the line outside for falafel sandwiches to-go. David ordered the lamb shwarma – a warm pita packed with roasted vegetables, cucumber and tomato, succulent slices of roasted lamb freshly shaved off the rotating spit and topped with tahini sauce.

I had the vegetarian falafel plate: a pile of hot and crunchy balls of falafel set in the middle of a plate surrounded by little mounds of hummus, pickled red cabbage, roasted eggplant, cucumber and tomato salad, and baba ganoush. Because they wouldn't allow us to feed Emmett the baby food we brought with us (because it was non-kosher, we believe), Emmett shared the hummus and pita with me which he enjoyed. Along with our side of maison frites (house fries) and a bottle of Nectar d'Israel (turned out to be mango nectar), the bill came to 29€ ... pricy for lunch, but delicious nonetheless.

How delicious?

So delicious that we returned a few days later for a late afternoon snack. This time we stood in line, got our sandwiches to go, and joined the crowd standing in front of the restaurant carefully eating their sandwiches.

David suggested that we might want to ask for forks, my response being the title of this post. It surely wasn't easy to eat our giant stuffed pitas without dropping a few slices of meat or vegetable here and there.

David noted that I even managed to get sauce on my nose. I also thought I heard him say something in reference to me that ended with what sounded like the word "caveman". Hmmph.

And because we happened to be so close to Amorino gelato anyway...

L’As du Falafel 34, rue des Rosiers (M: St. Paul), closed Friday pm and Saturday.