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Bread & Olive
Category: Restaurants Middle Eastern Middle Eastern [Edit]
20 John St(between Broadway & Nassau St)
New York, NY 10038
Neighborhood: Financial District
(212) 385-2144
- Nearest Transit:
-
Fulton St (4, 5)
Fulton St (A, C, J, Z)
Fulton St (2, 3)
- Attire:
- Casual
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$
- Good for Groups:
- No
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Alcohol:
- No
10 reviews for Bread & Olive
10 reviews in English
-
Review from SSQuo S.
6/18/2008
Take-out
Keywords: Yum, Yum, Yum!
So the keywords pretty much sums it up, but last night as I was thinking about the possible options on seamlessweb and how I have exchausted them all, a friend decided on Bread and Olive. I didnt know what was beign ordered but I couldnt have been happier with any other cuisine.
Hummus - AWESOME. I mean thoroughly delicious.
Pita: Nice, thin, and while i really love the combo of pita and
hummus, I think nice thin pita offers the perfect taste. This was
it.
Salad: Lettuce or cabbage salad, not sure, but it was YUM!
They could have held back on the chopped mint, but it was
refreshing, and full of zest. i.e. lime or something sour.
Tomato pieces sneaked in as well although i stayed away
from it.
Falafel: Very good. My favorite is Mamouns, and so far I rate
these a relatively close second.
Tahini: Not bad, tad bit too garlicy but then I love garlic and
wasn't looking at a night out about town or whispering close to
someone else....if you know what i mean.
Hot sauce: Disappointing, I expected it to be much better. Just
didn't like it.
Minced Lamb Kababs: Pretty good, felt clean which for minced
meat is an important criteria for me. Normally we would just do
the shawarma, but they were out of it so friend ordered this.
Rice: Was not bad, i was hogging all the Pita so i just tasted
the rice. But it was fine.
All in all delicious meal. Merci mon ami for ordering this in. Now, I have to make it to the place too. I think I just might do that...and you should to.
Website: http://www.breadnolive... -
Review from A K S.
Boston, MA
12/11/2008
Seriously? People actually come here, when Alfanoose is just one block away?
I guess that would explain the emptiness of the place when i was there at lunchtime, though. On the plus side, no lines!
On the negative side... the food wasn't good. I ordered a grilled lamb sandwich, which wouldn't have been too bad if I hadn't had to pull out most of the meat. It was just too fatty and chewy to work well in a pita sandwich. Also, (vegetarians cover your eyes) the meat was practically dripping blood and looked as if it had just been taken off the animal or something. I'm all for a good rare slab of steak for dinner... but fatty, gristly little bits wrapped in a pita??
The rest of the sandwich (after removing the lamb) was pretty sad too, but I guess that's to be expected. They also put a type of pickle in it that doesn't seem to go with the food at all... I think they were dill pickles (!) At least, NOT the kind of sandwich accessory you'd find at Alfanoose.
The man working there seemed nice, though. And maybe all the other items on their extensive menu are stellar, who knows. I'll still stick to maiden lane for my middle eastern fix. -
Review from Simona S.
Manhattan, NY
4/26/2008
DELICIOUS!!
I wasn't happy about paying $12 for the lamb platter but when I took all of the contents out of my bag, I was all like:
"Whoa, that's a lot of food. I won't be able to finish this. Shit. I lost."
They give you an entire container of hummus-- and delicious hummus at that. Lemony, smooth but not too creamy (I don't like too creamy) and sans garlic. I struck up a conversation with the Lebonese man at the counter because he was wearing some fierce bifocals and he told me that the difference between Arabic and Israeli hummus is that them Arabs don't use garlic. Fine, fine... you hate my people but damn I be up in your restaurantz, eatin yur hummuz.
AH and the cabbage salad with mint and lemon was divine. I wanted more. It was the only thing I finished. I was a little sad they only gave me two skewers of lamb because I really heart meat but they gave SO much rice and it was buttery and delicious and I'm salivating and I just want more. I'm so sad I never stopped by this place before.
My only beef (heh, not lamb!) with this place: I wish the pita wasn't hard (it's not fluffy, why is my pita not fluffy?!) and I wish I had another skewer of lamb. Other than that, I'm craving those Lebonese men again.
I mean the lamb. And rice. And other delicious goodness.
Thanks for being 3 minutes away, Bread and Olive!
PS- I saw no bread or olives, but that is neither here nor there. Because they give you a crapload of good food. Good enough to share. Except I don't share. I'd rather throw out the extra than feed my friends. Get your own damn food, a-holes.Listed in: I Will Go Blind if I Don't Eat
-
Review from Kate T.
10/31/2007
You have to love a place where the guy behind the counter can mishear 'mudadarda' as 'potatoes'. That takes some serious skill. When my food showed up at the register, and i realized that they'd misunderstood, they were very gracious (and quick) about fixing it.
Anyway, this place is one of those super-narrow spaces with a few tiny tables along one wall to allow 4 people to dine-in. The food is all in a case, and if so inclined you can watch them scoop it into your foil take-out container. (Perhaps i should have, and thus mitigated the comprehension issue, but oh well.)
My mudadarda was, well for one thing, served cold when i've always had it warm before. It was also surpassingly bland. The 'platter' designation meant that it was served with a nearly equal portion of cucumber/radish/onion/bell pepper salad with italian dressing. Somehow, that managed to be bland too. My coworker got the tabbouleh platter, which was literally giant scoops of tabbouleh. I've never seen someone expected to eat straight tabbouleh, it was odd. She wasn't thrilled with it either.
That being said, it was at least edible, the staff was polite, it was reasonably priced for the financial district, and since i didn't dine in, i wasn't too bothered by the shoddy state of the shop. I doubt i'd ever choose to go here again, but if forced to, i'd still be able to eat what i got. -
Review from Erika R.
New York, NY
1/15/2009
My coworker and I are on the hunt for the best falafel sandwich in lower Manhattan. We heard about this place from a fellow colleague and decided to check it out. It was snowing pretty hard a couple hours ago so we agreed to just order in (thank you seamless!).
$6 for a falafel sandwich?!??? Might as well shell out the extra $2 for the falafel platter (which we did). The falafel is flavorful but it was deep fried for too long and hence, WAY too crispy. They're served on a bed of romaine lettuce, a heap of hummus and the falafel sandwich toppings (cucumbers, bell peppers - they were a nice touch, onions & tomatoes). The platter also comes with a huge roll of pita bread which, unfortunately, arrived cold. Is it supposed to be cold? Oh well. The red & white sauces were average.
We had to wait 45 minutes for our food to arrive! It was not worth the wait. All in all, everything was just plain-jane-average. -
Review from Cindy C.
12/27/2007
What it lacks in ambiance, Bread & Olive makes up for in taste & value. My bf loved his Kafta Meshwi sandwich. My Chicken Shawarma platter had enough grub to feed an army. The chicken was a little dry for me, but it was flavorful. The salad & humus that came with it was delicious. It was our first visit and we definitely plan on going back.
Update: We ordered delivery and it took longer than we expected because the deliveryman couldn't handle all the orders. The food was lukewarm, but it still tasted good after we nuked it. -
Review from Dina V.
3/6/2009
Boss lady came back from lunch raving that they have great falafel. So I went to check it out and got the falafel and hummus as a small veggie combo for 6 bucks. The guy behind the counter wanted to convince me to get a more substantial veggie entree as my second choice but I stuck to the basics. He ended up giving that away for five bucks. Friendly.
It was post lunch so the place was empty and I sat down to eat. It smells kinda funky in there, old building smell. The falafel was dense and crispy but only luke warm. The hummus was ok, good texture. And a plain wrap (dont think it was a pita) came with it. I might come again just because its a place to sit that's not work. -
Review from Jenny B.
San Francisco, CA
5/4/2008
Another good place to get lunch in the financial district. Compared to Alfanoose, the food is incredibly flavorful. I got the vegetaran sampler for $10 and it was plenty of food. A friend got the Kefta platter and loved that as well, and she is pretty particular about meat. I agree that the bread could have been a bit softer, but I can't argue with the authenticity.
Here's the important part: We got their baklava for dessert; it was the best I've ever had. Not dripping with too much of the honey sauce, but sweet, nutty, buttery, and not even that messy. Definitely plan on having this again. -
Review from Eric S.
San Francisco, CA
9/1/2008
Yum yum yum. Perfect hummus, and everything else is really good. Not quite a five star establishment, but I would happily spoon mouthfuls of their hummus and call it a day.
The only sad thing is that they really make fresh squeezed orange juice & lemonade, and when they run out of oranges & lemons, you're SOL. -
Review from Robb L.
New York, NY
3/25/2008
This place has always been solid for me. The Bread & Olive Combination comes with your choice of five vegetarian sides for $9. It's a ton of food. The usual suspects are there: hummus is creamy with a little lemony tart, baba ganoj is delicious and smoky, taboulleh and grape leaves are good as well. Falafels are nice 'n' crispy. They also have these great fried potatoes and this crazy good slaw, which is blended with mint and sometimes comes with the platters. The platters give you a pile of chicken or lamb shwarma, and the chicken taouk is very good as well.
I think they kind of play it by ear sometimes, in that if they run out of something they might substitute it with something (they think) is similar, which might explain why Kate T.'s friend got a mound of cracked wheat billed as taboulleh. I don't have an issue with that since I like all their dishes, but just something to note.
The space itself is small, but I've taken my whole office there before and we were able to seat 9 people with no problem. The stainless steel tables and teal chairs give it a kind of '50's look.
We also order delivery from here, either online or over the phone. Advice if ordering online: pay in cash. The restaurant must contract with an outside vendor for their website, and said vendor charged me double on my bank statement, even though the cc slip I signed w/ the deliveryman had the right amount. But here's the great thing, an antidote that sums up the owners of this gem:
I made a copy of the bank statement and the cc receipt and took it to the restaurant. The owner tried to get the story over the phone from the web company but was getting the runaround, so he just took the difference in cash out of the register and gave it to me -- then wouldn't let me pay for the sandwich I ordered, insisting it was on the house. I'll be a loyal customer for as long as they stay in business.
