My Anniversary Dinner at the new Alumah Restaurant

 

Last night my wife and I celebrated 6 wonderful years of marriage together! Our anniversary is really on the 10th but this year it comes out on Yom Hazikaron, so we wouldn’t have been able to celebrate properly. After sharing a bit about why we went, let’s get to the food!

About the place, it is a fine dining establishment: white tablecloths, comfortable chairs and really good service thanks to Gavriel, who was shadowing and teaching the waiters how to work in a fine dining establishment. We asked him what was good, and after that ordered appetizers. My in-laws, who joined us(Happy Birthday DAD!) ordered the cured trout gravlax style, on beetroot carppacio with a light horseradish cream, my wife ordered the green leaf salad with poached pears and roasted seeds and nuts, and I ordered the salmon and garden peas risotto. Before we started with the appetizers, they started us off with fresh bread made in-house with three dips: A beetroot dip, pesto and an egg based dip. The bread was delicious, and the dips were a hit. the star was definitely the beetroot dip, which we asked for more a couple of times!

The cured trout looked and tasted very fresh and delicious, especially the beet carpaccio, a great addition. The leafy salad was a bit bitter but the poached pears were a very nice balance. The risotto was creamy and smooth and cooked perfectly, the salmon was fresh and the peas were a nice addition as well. After enjoying a slew of delicious appetizers we enjoyed a bottle of 2012 Shiraz from the Dalton winery. For a guy who is getting into wine, it was a delightful wine. Full of flavor with a sweet and smoky finish with great tannins. I highly recommend it any time you are going to enjoy a nice meat meal!

The we ordered the mains. My wife ordered the grey mullet with swiss chard, mushroom ragout and warm tehini sauce, me and my father in law ordered the rib eye steak with a hollandaise sauce and my mother in law ordered the lamb chops with gnocchi and ratatouille.

The food came out very quickly which was very nice and it did not disappoint. lets start with the steak. Cooked to a perfect medium rare topped with a gravy with shallots. The steak was grilled to perfection and was so tender it melted in my mouth. It was lacking a bit of salt, but I feel that was a personal preference. The green beans and potatoes were a nice side but the steak was the star of the show.

The fish was presented beautifully but was a bit overcooked. So my wife was a bit dissapointed, but the flavors were definitely brought to the dish. Then the lamb chops. A bit on the fatty side but again cooked to perfection, and the gnocchi, I can’t stop praising it enough. So light and smooth, melted in my mouth, and to round it all out, the ratatouille was fresh with a lot of basil and was a great compliment to the dish.

After almost filling up we decided to order desserts. they were very interesting and different. like my wife and mother in-law ordered the tapioca and mango with mint, a crepe madlen with vanilla sauce and orange blossom and my father in-law went with the chocolate espresso mousse. The chef sent out an extra dessert for our anniversary which was a pineapple crumble with banana and date honey ice cream.

This is where the mixed reviews started coming in. First came out the fresh pineapple crumble and ice cream. I Have to say that the banana ice cream was one of the most delicious parve ice creams i have ever tasted and I hate bananas! The crumble was too sweet, but the ice cream stole the show. Then came the tapioca and mango dessert. If you like tapioca anything, this dessert is for you. the mango foam was very refreshing but I’m not a tapioca fan and my wife didn’t like it. on the other hand my mother in law wiped hers out! It was very pretty and refreshing after such a heavy meal.

The crepe that I ordered also came with a berry ice cream and boy was it needed. The crepes looked amazing, but was overwhelming with orange, and that really hid the taste of the vanilla cream in the crepe. The berry ice cream really broke that orange flavor and again, another amazing parve ice cream. The chocolate espresso mouse was very good. it came with a ball of chocolate ice cream, again the star of the dish. The mousse was nice and airy, the espresso was very weak which was good because it didn’t take over the whole dish. So the desserts were a bit disappointing but that shouldn’t take away from the rest my dinner experience.

Price wise, it is very decent for a fine dining establishment. For me and my wife it came out about 400 shekels(my in-laws covered for the wine and tip) which in my  opinion is very reasonable.

All in all, they are a restaurant in the beginning of their way, and I hope when I return, I will have a great experience like I had last night!

 

 

A Trip an Irish Pub in the Heart of Jerusalem

I usually spend every Sunday night in the center of town in Jerusalem, and finally tried out O’Connell. They serve over 40 types of Irish whisky there so it was pretty impressive when it came to the drink menu. But the reason I was there with friends was to try out the food. Everyone I had asked had told me that the food is legit, heck I even recommended about it in my post to theculturetrip.com. And well everyone the trip was worth it.

The food was legit. Pricey, but legit. We ordered a couple of different dishes to the table and they were all spot on. I personally ordered a hamburger medium, a fishn’chips, a chicken salad and a steak sandwich. The service took a while and a bit slow during the service itself but the food really made up for it.

The hamburger was cooked to a perfect temp and full of flavor. the char was perfect and the bun was toasted as well. But i still hate that when I order a burger they give you the vegetables on the side and I need to compile my burger. That wasn’t the case here though. A solid burger full flavor and fries to go with it. The fishn’chips, the fish was flaky and the coating was crunchy just like it should be. A bit pricey but worth the investment. The chicken salad was seasoned right, and the salad had a nice vinnagrette to compliment the salad. The steak sandwich was a bit disappointing though.  It needed like a sauce to give it another element but it was lacking, otherwise it could be a great sandwich.

All in all, a great way to spend the night out with a group of friends with some great food, on a street that is overloaded with restaurants as well.

 

One of my favorite Restaurants, Hachatzer

Hachatzer is hands down one of my favorite restaurants. The location is great( the old railway station) so there is plenty of parking. The ambiance is warm and cozy, wooden tables, white plates cloth napkins. And of course the chef, Motti Ochana, a Courdon Blue graduate, who has worked with chef Pini Levy before opening up Hachatzer by himself. The restaurant is a new middle eastern  When siting down I got to chat with him and he told me about his new restaurant called Medita on Derech Hevron street and I told him I’d try it out, but not tonight, tonight I was there for the tasters menu, the chef’s choice.

The tasters menu(230 shekel per person minimum 4 people) is made up of what Israelis call “salatim”, 4 fish appetizers, 4 meat appetizer, 4 main meat entrees, and 4 desserts. The amount of food that was served to us could have fed 6 people.

The “Salatim” open up with loaves of Moroccan bread called Farena which is a soft loaf of bread that is great for spreads. The spreads that they served were Cream of roasted eggplant with tehini, tehini with baked zucchini, homemade matbucha, hot mangold  with chopped meat, olives with balsamic oil and a chopped celery with currants salad. They were all  and different, original and full of flavor.

For the fish appetizers, we had A Jerusalem mixed grill made out of 4 types of fish, Morrocan style fish kabobs, Asian style sea bass and an endive salad with pears and pecans.

For the meat appetizers, beef carpaccio, fire roasted eggplant with fillet minion cubes and tehini, sweetbreads in a red wine sauce and  chopped liver made out of chicken and goose livers served with a cherry tomato jam and toast. It was all amazing. That is when we looked at the wine menu. The restaurant offers a wide selection of wines, beers and cocktails. My wife had a fidge sour and I had a Stella beer. The fidge sour was great and you can’t go wrong with Stella.

 

Then came the highlight of the night, the meat platter.8 hour short ribs cooked in an orange barbecue sauce, Fillet minion in a red wine sauce,A ribeye steak on the grill and chicken steaks in a chimichuri sauce. It was out of bounds! Cooked to a perfect medium rare, mmm amazing. They also served it with grilled sweet potatos, zucchinis and potato wedges. We couldn’t breath at this point.

 

Than came dessert. Lemon meringue pie, fresh striozel, Vanilla ice cream topped with date honey and halva, strawberry macaroons, Meringue kisses and marzipan cubes, chocolate truffles and chocolate almond crunch!  I needed a forklift to get me out of my seat.

 It is amazing culinary experience that I would highly recommend to anyone who is a real foodie living or visiting the Jerusalem area.