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vegan barcelona field report: FAIR WARNING – Maoz Falafel ARE addictive!
21June 22nd, 2010barcelonahi quarrygirl readers, time for yet another international post from field reporter dadatamonkey! up until now his posts have been from london, england…but today’s comes all the way from barcelona, spain! check out this awesome review of maoz vegetarian, our favorite restaurant chain ever.
Hello peeps the Monkey is back! In Barcelona, Spain (BCN) for a couple of weeks and feasting like I never have here. I´ve even found a vegan bar with a classic Brit menu… Oh yeah, Barca is really rockin with vegan food… But for now, let us deal with of one of my all time faves: FALAFEL!!!
What can I say? Maoz Vegetarian BCN… I LOVE YOU! How much? 5 times in 7 days so far, so go figure. 😉 Yup. You guessed it, I´m a Maoz fan of old, and have eaten their superb Falafel in 3 different cities for years. All have been superb! This really is the ULTIMATE in (healthy) vegan fast food! QG has already sung their praises so I´ll just re-iterate how lucky I am that this venue serves the best version I´ve had the pleasure to devour…
Plus the staff speak English (and often multiple other languages). Or at the very least Spanglish!
A full stuff yourself stupid meal for min Euro 4-20!! Get it on!
As always the menu´s pretty simple. GORGEOUS Falafel served in pitta (the new pitta here is thinner and crispier than the last time, but better in my view) with really crisp iceberg lettuce (or without pitta in a plastic bowl for those that are gluten intolerant), add humous, maybe guac (why would you?), avoid the feta, and then dive into the salad bar… But… Barca has one special touch. Cheap, good vegan beer! Local brand Estrella (pronounced estraya, the Catalans are like that) is very, very chilled and only Euro 1-50 a pop. Happy daze…
Da Salad Bar. Funk me I´m in heaven! Feasting time!!
The salad bar is a free for all, and at times that is way too true. Try to pick your moment to drop in as this place is nearly always rammed (the other two sites less so), but by judicious use of body positioning and a little bad ass attitude – hey, they ain’t all vegan, OK! – you get pretty much free range and a seat!
BCN Maoz offer a great range of really fresh salads, and due to the massive turn over it really is FRESH! ☺ Everything from curried chickpeas, deep fried cauliflower, olives, doused carrots in cumin, great sauces, etc etc.. BUT BE WARNED – ONE item is NOT vegan – the green slaw fifth up the row (it moves around) from left contains milk mayo, so avoid! Everything else is cool though and I´ve never seen any carry over as us Europeans are cultured, dontcha know. 😉 Plus the staff work constantly cleaning everything up! Bless ém!
Also be careful of the 3 white sauces above the salad bar, only the tahini is vegan despite so many vegans thinking they all are. Tabasco is of course readily to hand for those that feel they need it!
PROPER FALAFEL. Better than I can make them. Says a lot. Euro 4-30
As you can see I love the fried cauli! And the hot sauce too (for me it´s not that hot, but for others I gather it can be)! Add in shed loads of tahini, humous, carrots, chopped toms/cucumber/onion, curried chickpeas etc (and the odd chilli) and I´m sorted. I tend to use my thumb to squelch up the falafel around the pitta before adding things, so that I get more bang per bite, so to speak. Then add things in layers, spreading it around. I´m sure you got what I mean! 😉
Half way through and still going strong.. Estralla beer Euro 1-50
As you can see, I wasn’t joking about building the layers up! I never go back to the salad bar once I´ve stuffed my pitta. No need. There´s loads more places with great vegan food to eat close by in Barca! I can´t believe the change in Barca in the last 10+ years I´ve been coming here. It’s a funkin´ revolution for Spain! But more on that later…
So.. The conclusion? Oh yes. The dogs bollocks. It´s a quaint old English saying. Honest Guv. 11/10. To be honest.. You may encounter some fun at some stage if you eat here more than once (you will), such as staff rowing, crazy customers, etc, but that’s Barca for you. Go with the flow. My advice? Get yer ass to Maoz BCN ASAP. It’s the BEST YET! I´ll be the one sitting in the bottom left corner grinning and eating. Curried chickpeas and love peeps! I feel like a hippie again. 😉
maoz vegetarian
Tags: barcelona, field report, maoz, spain
La Rambla, 95
08002 Barcelona
653 847 653
21 responses to “vegan barcelona field report: FAIR WARNING – Maoz Falafel ARE addictive!” 
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Maoz is a great place. I had their falafel in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Good food and very affordable for tight budget trip. They just opened Maoz in Berkeley, I can’t wait to try it when I’m there.
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My only problem with Maoz is the nastiness of letting people refill their already eaten off of Pita from the salad bar. I’ll watch homeless people with no shoes that haven’t showered for days (aka backpackers) take a bite and then touch the tongs to their bite marks as they fill their pita back up. A few Maoz (like the one in Madrid) have banned letting people do their own toppings, which is wise from a health standpoint.
I still eat there when ever I can, though 🙂
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k-dogg June 22nd, 2010 at 21:25
Ya, I left once cuz a guy was sticking his grubby little fingers in the cauliflowers while he was eating his sandwich. So I went to the other location.
This place and GOPAL all day.
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i want falafel right now.
good falafel. and hummus and pita so i can make a sandwich.
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Gregalor June 22nd, 2010 at 21:51
Fried cauliflower and curried chickpeas with falafel sounds pretty great right about now.
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psh maoz is OK and good for tourists but there are so many better choices!!! juicy jones which is also rt off la rambla. AMAZING farmers markets with locally grown and DELICIOUS produce. el buffet verd which is an all veg buffet. also check out sincarne.net for a ton of other options that dont include chain falaffel you can get in many american cities now. dont get me wrong maoz is cheap and delicious… there are just many more amazing options that (especially if you want to support local and small business) you can go to.
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Da Data Monkey June 23rd, 2010 at 09:21
@lia Too true. Watch this space! But I can only eat an’ write so fast 😉 I’ve got some surprises in store for BCN vegans too I hope.. 🙂 An’ maoz is locally owned – its a franchise I think? An’ the parent company is dutch not american 🙂
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stranger June 23rd, 2010 at 13:14
we went to barcelona in march + we were loving moaz too. until we discovered gopal though! we were directed to it on our penultimate day + we were so annoyed we didn’t get to go there more. the staff were amazing. the prices were good. + the food was some of the best vegan stuff i’ve ever tasted! check it!
http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=20468
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ArnieThrockmorten June 23rd, 2010 at 15:41
Thanks this is awesome! I’m going to Barcelona in a few weeks. Hopefully you do some more write ups from Barcelona.
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Last summer I traveled Europe and finding Maoz was such a JEM! I ate there everyday in Barcelona and even went out of my way to find it in Madrid. I can’t wait to try the one in Berkeley soon! Love it!
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I’ve been here, too! I fell in love with the place when I was in Barcelona for the first time 3 years ago and had to return when I was there again last year. And every time I see this joint, I have to go in, love the veggie stuff! If we’d had that place in Finland I’d be stuffing myself there more than I probably should 😀 Didn’t think about the vegan point at the time but in retrospect it’s very cool.
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L. Pic. June 24th, 2010 at 00:25
Falafels saved me while traveling in Europe and Moaz is awesome. I live on them whenever I’m in madrid. And like someone else mentioned, the one in Madrid has all the toppings behind glass so you get no grossness.
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Molly June 25th, 2010 at 09:43
I just ate at Maoz in London (Soho) because of your posting on it. It was fantastic!!!!
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Well i’m a bercelonian and i’m not really a Maoz fan ( altough it’s not only a Barcelona / spain thing: in Europe there’s a lot of them ), always rough stomach times after a complete one. But i’ll give all my props to their holland style fries: absolutly winners at 2 a.m.!
Anyway this “report” makes a clear point that every vegan / veggie should know about Barcelona: we’ re far from other european cities regarding to vegan / veggie cuisine. There’s a new spot for “fast vegan food ” with all the usual fake options and the veggie restaurant are a little bit disspointing.I’ll strongly recommend Out Of China, a non vegan restaurant but with a good quality vegan selection indicated in the Chart
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Da Data Monkey June 30th, 2010 at 14:06
Cool Molly!! 🙂
Cheers Marc! Maybe I should open a high end vegan diner here… hmmmmm…..
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James Dean September 7th, 2010 at 05:48
I’m sure you pussies would prefer a McD’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese if you tried one.
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Da Data Monkey September 20th, 2010 at 09:28
Thinks for your highly intelligent input James. Much appreciated.
Nabil June 22nd, 2010 at 20:29