the wandering foody

LONDON — I was recently invited to a blogger event at Hummus Bros, which is one of my favourite fast food eateries in London. Their menu is concise but fun: you choose a topping or two for your hummus, and, if you like, substitute the pita bread with gluten-free bread, corn tortilla chips, rice cakes or carrot sticks.  Allergy-friendly and fresh ingredients. I think they’ve nailed the concept of healthy fast food here.

When my friend and I arrived at the event, we were greeted by Christian, one of the Hummus Bros, who was friendly and patiently answered our neverending questions.  It was clear that he is thoughtful about the product and cares about giving his customers more choices – from alternatives for people with food allergies to the garlic served on the side in case lunchtime customers have meetings afterwards.

I decided to order a small hummus with half guacamole topping and half chicken tikka topping, which was the special at the time.  I love dip, so getting to add two different toppings to my hummus made me pretty happy.  I would say that the guacamole was okay and the chicken tikka, which was mildly spicy stewed chicken, was delicious.  I ordered the gluten-free bread, but they were nice enough to bring out the corn chips and carrot sticks as well.

In the end, I liked eating the hummus with the corn tortilla chips the most because the crunchy texture went well with the smooth, thick hummus and creamy chicken tikka.  The gluten-free bread lacked flavour and texture, but I was grateful to have that option nonetheless.

I also had a mixed vegetable salad, which was a simple bowl of large cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and red peppers. There was nothing special about this salad, but the vegetables were really fresh and I liked the dressing a lot.

This is the falafel salad that my friend ordered , which he said was very good.

For dessert, I chose the chocolate brownie, which was fudgy and moist.  It tasted like a regular brownie, but was gluten-free!

My friend ordered the malabi with date honey.  It was kind of like a milk custard, with silky smooth texture.  I thought the malabi was delicious, but didn’t care for the slightly tangy date honey.  My friend thought it was a great combination, however.

We finished off the meal with steaming mugs of fresh mint tea.

Instead of following traditional Middle Eastern recipes, I like that Hummus Bros offers fun toppings, such as chicken tikka or guacamole, with their hummus.  And why not?  I think it satisfies the hummus craving in a different way.  I would have loved to have one of these restaurants back when I was in college!

In a nutshell:  Healthy hummus with different toppings; fast, cheap, and fresh; consistently excellent service

I was a guest of Hummus Bros.

……….

Hummus Bros /  37-63 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4DA / 020 7404 7079

Tags: blogger event, gluten free bread, gluten free dessert, Hummus Bros, London, Malabi

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 6th, 2011 at 12:04 pm and is filed under London, Middle Eastern. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.