After a futile search for the Calexico Burrito Cart, I decided to give Taim another try. About two weeks ago, I went with my editor on a lunch break. A fellow vegetarian, she told me Taim falafel was even better than Mamoun’s (which I love and only costs like $3!) and Maoz (which I first tried and fell in love with in Madrid). Unfortunately, I was really underwhelmed and turned off by the (in my opinion) inordinate amount of cucumber. For the record, I had the Hassima flavor and it was pretty good. This time I tried something different and healthier. Kind of.

After the cashier told me I couldn’t have the falafel sandwich without cucumber (unless I completely removed the Israeli salad), I switched to my second choice: the quinoa salad. Because I’ve been good lately and I’m obsessed with it, I ordered a mini baklava to go. It’s worth noting that I adore Mediterranean food and nearly had an aneurysm on Greek day at the Georgetown cafeteria a few months ago. So here’s my review the second taim around.

Name: Taim

Location: 45 Spring Street

Time: 4:30 pm

Order: Small quinoa salad and baklava to go

Price: $9.50

Review: Incredible. I can already presage my future difficulty to not get it every single day. The fresh quinoa salad offers the ideal medley of cold quinoa, chopped kale and cilantro, roasted slivered almonds and lemon juice. I am most certainly recreating this in the near future. The baklava was delicious, but very sweet and sticky. By the way, it slipped my mind to order hummus so when I got back to my kitchen, I grabbed my Whole Foods olive hummus and toasted a whole wheat tortilla round.

Rating: 5/5