New York Post

Dishes to ‘bowl’ you over in Park Slope

- By JENNIFER GOULD KEIL jgould@nypost.com

It was only a matter of time before the bowl phenom went global.

Rajesh Bhardwaj, founder and chief executive of Michelin-starred Junoon, and his partners, executive chef Adin Langille and Stephen Macrina, have just opened an internatio­nal poke bowl fast food concept in Park Slope.

Bowl & Blade, at 169 Fifth Ave., is 400 square feet and can seat up to eight.

Each bowl is inspired by a different culture, from Hawaiian to Greek to Korean, and made to order.

Customers choose a base, from grains and greens to veggie noodles and then a protein, from ahi tuna, Verlasso salmon and sous vide chicken breast to root vegetables or tofu.

Maui-style poke, for example, will have wakame seaweed salad, scallion, sweet onion, mango and tobiko caviar as a base, while the customer can choose the sauce and protein.

The East Medi bowl features olives, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and chickpeas with a cumin tahini sauce. Sweet bowls, with açai and frozen yogurt, like the Elvis Crunch-let, with peanut butter, banana, granola and toasted peanuts round out the menu.

More outlets are in the planning stages, with the next one opening in Midtown, according to a source. Mamoun’s Falafel, which opened in Greenwich Village in 1971 and claims to be the city’s oldest falafel shop, is taking a page from the Five Guys burgers & fries, and The Halal Guys’ playbook.

Like both chains, it has partnered with Fransmart to expand nationally.

Mamoun’s is in the tri-state area and in Dallas, and plans to open in Philadelph­ia, Long Island and Fort Lee, NJ, this spring, and later this year in Staten Island, northern California and Chicago.

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