Crazy 4 Falafel — Restaurant in Edison

Honest review of my first/ last time here based on both my wife's order and my own: Chicken kebab pita : the pita itself was soft and chewy as it should be, soaking up the tahini perfectly and the veg was crisp and fresh, cut in the last 4-6 hours. As for the meat... well this isn't the first time I've seen this, but it's anger inducing every time. They use thigh meat for the kebab, which is horribly wrong for a multitude of reasons, firstly the fat from the meat will not have time to render while be directly grilled leaving you with stringy/fatty meat, a trait commonly found in places who are struggling with maintaining food cost percentages in an attempt to save a marginal amount of money. The end result is a laughable chewy disaster that would be more fitting to be served in a gas station. Secondly it was marinated in a quasi traditional Indian baking method of tandoori. I generally love this style of cooking when done properly, however this was a straight up fail. I ate about 6 bites of my pita before throwing it in the garbage while googling where to eat next.... absolute trash. My wife's order : the Jerusalem Common cold mixture of middle eastern apps. The Falafel was rather good, crispy, not overly mushy or frozen for a long time. The hummus was par,too thick (again saving money on using oil and fresh lemon juice) it lacked any mint or additional flavor but was edible. The baba was roughly the same, decent smoke flavor a bit too much cheap bottled lemon juice, but edible. The tabuli was literally 30% of a parsley bunch with a sprinkling of tomato and lemon. Again, not terrible just edible. The pitas as previously mentioned were great.

Overall I would never return even if the food was free. The service was fine, despite the very odd pos system used for cc transactions, but if I have to throw away my meal while I'm still hungry that's a surefire sign that I...

I use to to come here frequently under the original owner who sold and opened pita on Essex in Millburn. I came here less and less after that as the food got worse and worse. I hadn't gotten food here in a couple years and decided to give it a try. What a mistake that was.

The first thing that jumped out to be was the menu changes. No longer is this a Mediterranean restaurant. The menu is composed of fried chicken, chicken paneer, shawarma. The menu you would expect in a bodega in Patterson, not from a place that use to serve some of the best shawarma in the state. The store front is wallpapered with paper signs of random items.

I noticed the shawarma on the spit looked old and dry, but Against my better judgement, I still decided to order food. I ordered a chicken shawarma pita with only hummus and tehina. The hummus was a 1.29 upcharge. No big deal. Annoyingly I had to repeat myself multiple times to order as the employee behind the register was giving 10% of his attention to 4 different things and 100% of his attention to none of the 4 things.

I watched the employees assemble my sandwich, pita came out of the warmer which was promising. And then the shawarma was scooped from a crockpot. Not fresh at all. Just a sad pile of lukewarm oily dry chicken.

My sandwich was cold. And not from adding the hummus. The pita was cold, the chicken was both cold and dry. Flavor was non existent. There was an unreasonable amount of oil mixed in from soaking in the warming tub. Just absolutely disgusting across the board.

Crazy 4 falafel is now in line with a NYC pushcart both in in menu and in quality. The only thing crazy about this place is you if you eat here. A sad shell of what was once a great local eatery. Save your time and money and...

Good place to eat, prices are a hit high but depending on who is making the pita sandwiches you do get a good meal for your money. The owners have changed recently so there is a little bit of cost cutting but on the good side the taste and quality hasn’t tanked. I usually get the falafel sandwich in the pita or chicken shawarma sandwich; they are very generous with the fillings and the salads (except for the new Indian kid, he doesn’t layer it well and it tastes dry). To compare, I used to go to New Brunswick to get Mamoun's but their sandwiches aren’t as loaded. Mamoun’s uses ½ a pita, puts the meat on the bottom with a bit of tahini sauce and then adds lettuce and onions and another dab of sauce to top it off. Now these guys (except for the Indian kid again, I hope he learns the technique) use a full pita, add the tahini, then the falafel or chicken, add in a coleslaw like mix, then add a bit of sauce, then more filling with sauce and top it off with the cabbage slaw and sauce. It makes for a complete meal which has a lot more flavor than Manmoun’s I haven’t eaten anything else here like the lamb or other items so I can’t write about those but if you are looking for a good falafel or chicken in pita, this is the place. Make sure you tell the Indian kid to layer properly like the more experienced staff, deducted 1 star because of the his...