Falafel Feud-Gas Station Falafel

What: Falafel Sandwich

Where: Rockingham Gas

35 North Main Street

Newmarket  NH 03857

How much: $3.99

 

Bargain gas!  At $2.49!  What a deal! And Marlboros at $5.99.  And falafel?  You think that you would have to stop in to get at least one of these great deals.

(readers, cue That Petrol Emotion - Creeping to the Cross)  (clicking on link should open YouTube in a new browser tab so you can hear my selected audio track playing, but you will have to click back on this tab to return)
 
You may know of the establishment of my ongoing Falafel Feud and my visit to Falafel King (see Falafelicious! below).  A couple of months ago (pre-blog), my travels took me through seacoast New Hamsphire.  I drove by this gas station and before my tiny brain could react to what I thought I saw on the sign, I drove right past.  I continued driving for another mile, asking myself if I saw it correctly and if my vision was correct, wondering just how good a falafel sandwich be from a gas station could be.  I did turn around, figuring it would be at best fair, but having the potential for being great or at least a great story.  It was fair back then and I thought, being in the area, that I should give it another try.

The answer is still, at best, fair.  The sandwich was not freshly made, but came out of a beverage cooler.  The sign three feet above and to the left the cooler said $3.49, but I was charged $3.99.  As I looked up and stared hard at the sign for fifteen seconds or so, the cashier finally offered that he had planned on making his own falafel at the counter below the sign a while ago and never got around to either making falafel or changing the sign.  He sells them pre-made as you can see from the picture.

There was no lettuce.  The tomatoes were diced and not too generous, but ripe.  The pickled somethings were good, if not a little soggy.  The pita was fair and exactly what you'd expect from sitting in the fridge.  The falafel (fried ground chick peas with spices) was superball sized with a granule size of coarse beach sand and not generous in quantity.  overall sandwich size was small compared to what I am used to at Falafel King.  Since the sandwich was cold, I did throw it into the crease where the windshield meets the dashboard and drove for ten minutes to let it warm up.  Fair value at best for the money.

Points for the something out of the ordinary for gas station food.

I'd give it 2B/6. 

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Just what you should expect for a sandwich from a gas station!  I didn't even have the heart to give it a link to my favorite disappointment song Disappointed by P.I.L.