Ladies and gentleman,
we are in beautiful downtown Philadelphia,
pretty much in the center of Center City,
and we are headed right now to Goldie.
Now Chef Mike Solomonov opened Zahav,
which is a very famous,
well-regarded Israeli restaurant.
He's got sort of this younger sister restaurant
opening with Steve Cook, Goldie,
which is a vegan falafel shop.
They specialize in basically three things,
falafel, tehina shakes, and fries.
They do them all extremely simply,
they do them all well,
so let's go check it out.
(upbeat music)
The Philly food scene
has everything you could ever want.
I've traveled to a lot of places
and lived in a lot of different cities,
and Philly has an edge to it.
I really like that it's an East Coast city,
but it's affordable.
There's a lot of diversity here,
and there's a lot of community,
but everyone still has a chip on their shoulder.
I don't know.
It's an interesting place.
That's good.
It keeps you hungry. Right.
Keeps you scrappy.
Well, we're both enjoying shakes.
Yes we are.
How is your tehina shake?
Oh, so good.
What flavor do you have?
Coconut.
Okay, I have plain.
So I don't get the --
Fancy stuff?
Yeah, I usually get the Turkish coffee
or the coconut.
Those are my two favorites.
You're digging it?
Mm-hmm.
Definitely.
(upbeat music)
The fact that Goldie
has been appreciated as she has been,
in the midst of all this wonderful
other lunch food around us
is a very wonderful thing.
It feels very good.
And it is a vegan falafel shop?
Correct, and kosher, too.
What would non-vegan falafel look like?
It's not so much the falafel itself
that is a problem in terms of veganism.
It's more any of the stuff that could go in it,
so for example, if you wanted to have sabich,
sabich has egg, so that would not be able to happen.
Nothing could be cooked in animal fat,
or anything like that.
Are you vegan or vegetarian?
I am not, actually.
Most of the staff here is not,
but we really enjoy the food itself
just for the sake of it just happens to be vegan, as well.
(upbeat music)
All of our sandwiches come with tehina in them.
So you can either leave that tehina plain,
or have it be mixed with one of the following.
We have amba, which is a savory pickled mango sauce,
that we stew down with onions and garlic,
harissa's a little smoky, a little spicy,
it's made with bell and Aleppo peppers.
And then the hottest is gonna be schug,
which is made with serrano chilies, parsley and cilantro.
On the hot scale, like how hot are we talking?
It's like a 6 out of 10.
It's not gonna melt your face off,
but you'll know it's there.
I'll do that one.
All right.
Fries, shake?
Let's do fries.
Let's do shake.
Shawarma spice okay on the fries?
Yes.
(upbeat music)
Amba, harissa, schug.
Ketchup, sandwich, fries.
Thanks.
You're the best.
I do what I can.
(upbeat music)
Mr. Solomonov and Cook has this mini empire.
So you've got Federal Donuts,
you've Rooster Soup,
you've got Goldie,
you've got Zahav.
The strategy with a lot of the places
seems to be just do a couple things,
and f****** knock 'em out of the park.
Falafel, fries, shakes,
and that's kind of it.
I've gotta say,
these are some beautiful looking fries
with they call a shawarma spice.
Shawarma, of course, a popular Middle Eastern meat sandwich.
And you have a nice, creamy, smoky ketchup.
These fries have a little bit of a kick,
some cumin, black pepper,
it's got sort of that earthy spiciness,
but also a little bit of sweetness.
This is excellent.
This is the original tehina shake.
This is the banana flavored one.
When we talked about Goldie,
Eater Editor-in-Chief Amanda Kludt
said, "You gotta get the shake.
"Get it!"
(coughing)
Just kidding.
She never coughs.
What is tehina, you may ask?
Like a paste made from ground hulled sesame seeds.
You're gonna get an intense,
rich, creamy sesame flavor.
If you've never had tehina,
or if you've never had halva,
you know what a sesame seed tastes like.
You've had them on your buns and on your rolls.
But imagine just eating a million sesame seeds
at once in a delicious, creamy milkshake.
The fact that it's vegan is a bonus,
almost an afterthought.
Like if you had told me that there was dairy
in this tehina shake,
I probably would've believed you.
Because it is that thick, rich and creamy.
Really good.
This is the original.
This is the banana.
And this is just delightful.
Imagine everything I said,
but with delicious chunks of banana
added into it.
You ever make yourself a smoothie
and you put in like one piece of banana
into a thing this big
and the whole thing ends up tasting like banana?
Banana's super powerful, right?
Really powerful flavor,
and in this case, it works really well
because the sesame tehina flavor is also super rich,
super just like a punch in your mouth.
The flavors end up balancing each other really well.
It ends up sort of tasting like a really creamy,
nutty banana shake.
Very decadent, very sweet,
very rich.
This is super, super good.
So I have fairly spoiled my appetite
for what I came here to eat,
which is a falafel sandwich..
There is some controversy
as to where falafel comes from.
A lot of different peoples and countries
sort of claim it as their own.
This is beloved street food
for so many in the Middle East,
and recently, maybe since the '70s,
become super popular in North America.
(upbeat music)
It's a nice sandwich.
Gonna talk about the pita.
You want it to have some character.
You don't want it to be that dry,
pre-made, store-bought pita.
You want it to have a little bit of chew,
you want it to have a little bit of pull,
you want it to be nicely leavened enough,
and so just so you can see
what the inside of the ball looks like,
I'm just gonna bite into it.
So you can see that nice green color
in the falafel ball.
Good quality chickpeas,
nice herbal balance,
definitely an excellent, excellent falafel sandwich,
fries, shakes, all around,
just no weak spot.
I almost said that these peppers
were a little bit like playing Russian roulette,
and that they might be acceptably mild,
they might be burn your face off.
Shall I just do it?
Ever wish you hadn't done something?
You know what's gonna help?
A little tehina shake.
A little tehina shake helps everything.
Goldie, excellent, really like it.
You guys, I really hope you enjoyed this episode
of Dining on a Dime from Goldie,
in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
If you'd like to watch more,
please click here.