Maoz, 43 Old Compton Street

There's a definite art to eating at Maoz. In order to get your moneys worth you really need to be adept at handling a pair of tongs. Anybody on Tong Handling Level 3* or above should be fine, anything less and you shouldn't even bother, go home, get some practice, save yourself the embarrassment of everybody seeing you mishandle tongs.

Maoz is a vegetarian outlet, so don't go expecting meat, instead go expecting falafal and more salad than you can shake a stick at. Seriously the variety of the salad is excellent, carrot, fried cauliflower, tomatoes, cous cous, beetroot, pickled chillies, mushrooms, sweetcorn and more plus a choice of 4 dips as well, including, coriander dip and red chili dip. You can decide whether to get a freshly toasted Pita, filled with falafal and hummus with salad or just stick to salad, or salad and falafal.

Here's where the skill comes in, what ever you order whether its a pita with falafal and hummus, or a salad box you are going to need to help yourself to salad. With such variety of salad, you will want to try them all. Take your time, with a salad box you need to fill bit by bit. Best to under fill at first then go back and top up, you can fit a lot in so don't be shy. With a pita you need to add some salad then push it down inside the pita before adding the next, continue this process until you've got a bit of each. Best to eat in (no extra charge) with a pita, if you've filled it correctly it will get messy after the first bite.

All in all the Maoz is good, but not exceptional. It is certainly quantity over quality. The falafal is excellent, freshly cooked and full of herbs. Everything else is mediocre, the salads are nice but lacking any real flavour, the drinks are also a bit plain - lemon squash with a sprig of mint is a bit rubbish. Maoz really shines for value for money, the meal deals at just under £6 will leave you stuffed, you will not get more food for your money anywhere else.

Current Favourite: Meal deal - Salad box or pita, falafal, hummus, aubergine, chips and a drink all for under £6.

Rating: 2.5/5
Cost: ££

Open: Mon - Thurs 11am - 1am, Fri, Sat 11am - 2am, Sun 11am - 12am

http://www.maozusa.com/

*Tong Handling Levels
LEVEL 1 - You've only ever picked up tongs in order to move them aside to get to that wooden spoon you use for every kitchen job
LEVEL 2 - You've used tongs very occasionally, maybe to turn some sausages on the new barbecue you've just bought because they came with it so you feel you ought to.
LEVEL 3 - You like using tongs, turning sausages is no problem, now you're even using them to serve the token mixed leaf salad that you provide at your annual barbecue.
Level 4 - You've now discovered that a closed set of tongs can be used to stir sauces before using them fully open to mix the sauce and pasta together before serving it up like a pro.
Level 5 - Tongs are now the only kitchen utensil you use. They've even replaced the tea towel when it comes to holding hot pans. You have different sized ones, coloured ones, silicon covered ones. That wooden spoon is long gone - good riddance it smelt of onion anyway.