A local Neighborhood favorite in Malcha: Cafe Avichail

Cafe Avichail

In almost every sitcom you will find the hero’s of the show sitting down somewhere in a local coffee shop or restaurant that the show focuses on. On this occasion, there is no sitcom, but a great neighborhood cafe (Kosher Rabbanute Mehadrin Jerusalem). Cafe Avichayil is located in the center of the Malcha neighborhood (not where the mall is, it’s located in the actual neighborhood) and it has caught the attention of other Jerusalemites and not only the local neighbors.

With that said, there is plenty of parking around the corner, and the place is pretty big. We happened to have noticed that they set up an area for families to eat, with a chalk wall and toys for the kids to play with, very original. We sat down and had a look at the menu, and I liked the way the menu was laid out, every dish had the right category and there was no BS. There were a couple of dishes that caught my eye, for example the Arancini on a roza sauce. I’m an arancini freak, so I ordered that for our appetizer to share. Then in the main courses section, there was an Italian section, salads and fish. What intrigued me was the radiator pasta, I didn’t even know a shape of pasta like that existed, so we ordered that and then in the fish section we wanted to try the salmon burger, but they were sold out, so we went with the Asian haloumi salad.

The arancini came out piping hot with the steam still coming off the crispy outside, that was golden brown. To cool it off split one of my aranchini in half and the cheese started oozing out, a great sign for a perfectly cooked risotto ball. Once it cooled down and we tasted it,  it was just as delicious as it looked.

Moving on to the main course, the shape of the pasta was awesome. I forget to mention that all the pasta was handmade and it makes all the difference. The sauce needed a bit of salt otherwise it was cooked perfectly al dente and was a great dish. The salad came out hot with a lot going on in one bowl; sweet potatoes, lettuce, peanuts, sprouts, cheese. A very busy salad, but once you took a bite, every component complimented the next.  It was a great salad that was just as it described, sweetish. We were so full we didn’t get dessert, but the pastries they offered, looked amazing.

All in all, it was a great experience, great food, great service and a great view. So If you are looking for somewhere quiet for a date or a nice dairy meal, make your way to the Malcha neighborhood and give Cafe Avichail a try.

A Middle priced gem in Jerusalem: Medita

A lot of people ask me all the time, where can I go out to eat and not have to spend a fortune? Where can I go and take a family of 5 without spending 300 shekels a person?

So this is what I tell everyone who asks; you have 2 options: 1. Go to any shupudia (an Israeli Steakhouse) where you can order 2 skewers with perfectly grilled meat,  fresh salads and fresh bread. The ambiance leans toward the fast food and not fine dining but you get what you pay for. By the way, I highly recommend many of these shipudias, whether it’s Grill Bar or Tzidkiyahu, because you get your value for the money. But when a family is looking for a place with a nice ambience, great food and restaurant service, I recommend Medita.

Medita is the brainchild of chef Motti Ochana owner and operator of the gourmet restaurant Hechatzer(one of my favorite kosher restaurants in Israel) Chef Motti decided to open up a second location a bigger location, but with more affordable prices without compromising the quality and level that the chef brings. Nothing on the menu looks cheap and is definitely not fast food. We went two couples so we ordered 2 starters and the house bread. One of the starters was a sabich salad, and the other was the pate mix with the cherry tomato jam on toast.

In a very non Israeli manner, all of the apps came out at the same time! We started with the bread and the dips, the bread was super fresh and crunchy, and had no clue what some of the dips were but they were a delight. The sabich salad was very nice with little pieces of toast to accompany the boiled egg and eggplant tehini sauce mixture. There was some chili in there as well and that gave the dish a nice kick and a great way to finish it off! The pate was out of bounds, I’ve had it before in Hechatzer and it was just as good; smooth texture, sweet and savory with a perfect crunch from the toast.

For the main course I ordered a medium rare steak with a baked potato and my wife ordered the “hechatzer “short ribs. Again, all the dishes came out the same time and definitely a highlight of the night. My steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare with the right amount of seasoning to make it complete. I didn’t really care for the baked potato because there was nothing special about it, no toppings or a dipping sauce to accompany it (it had a roasted cherry tomato on top, whoo hoo). The asado (short ribs) had a nice topping by adding pomegranate with scallions, it was a very very filling dish. Perfectly sweet, it’s a very heavy dish to eat alone, but it is so good!

A great location, great service, delicious food, all in all, Medita is a great middle range meat restaurant that fills out all the criteria of fine dining without making a hole in your pocket.

 

Breakfast in the Secret Garden of Beit Zayit: Derech Hagefen

Derech Hagefen

The title of my blog post this week may sound a bit out there, but when my wife and I walked in to Derech Hagefen, we were in awe. For a moment, we felt like we were in the secret garden like right out of the movie. But lets/ take a step first and tell you where it is. Derech Hagefen (Kosher local Rabbanute) is one of two restaurants owned by the same owner and share the same concept: A combination of a green house and coffee shop\dairy restaurant. Derech Hagefen is located in Beit Zayit, a very quiet and green Moshav located at the footsteps of the Jerusalem Mountains (right off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway). The other restaurant is called Cafe Itamar (review coming soon) located in Moshav Ora on the outskirts of Jerusalem. When I put the location into Waze, you really need to look for the coffee shop because most likely you will miss it like me the first time, but once you park in the parking lot and walk down the hill and get distracted by the dinosaur park you won’t miss it.

When you first walk into the restaurant, it doesn’t feel like a restaurant, it feels like a nursery that you can purchase plans from. Once you are greeted by the hostess then you come back to realize, oh I’m in a restaurant. We sat down near the coy pond, and I have to mention that there is indoor and outdoor seating. On a hot summer day you can sit indoors with the A\C or sit outside where this beautiful stream of cool mist keeps you nice and cool (I can use one of those for my house!).

Now that we were comfortable and accommodated, we ordered breakfast (you can’t order off the regular menu until 12pm). My wife ordered the Beit Zayit salad and I ordered the Beit Zayit breakfast which comes with a cold drink and a hot drink. While we were waiting, we noticed something funny, because the sound of the mist, you can’t hear anyone else conversation, but yours and that gave us an even more intimate experience even though we were outdoors with other diners.

Then the food comes, and let me tell you, it may be breakfast but it was impressive. The salad was huge, and came with lettuce, asparagus, sautéed mushrooms, Parmesan aioli, goat cheese and so much more. Iv’e seen thousands of salads in dairy restaurants, but this one, is definitely in my top 3. The creativity and taste really elevated the experience and added another reason to return for another meal. Then comes my breakfast, and omelet with everything but the kitchen sink in it: cheese, onions, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, more cheese. It came with fresh-baked bread that they bake in-house and an Israeli salad that was seasoned to perfection. The other thing that I really like that they served was real butter. Yeah, real butter that is yellow and not a packet like you get in every generic coffee shop\dairy restaurant in Israel.

After almost filling up on the breakfast, I wanted to try one of their homemade desserts, so we tried a slice of cheesecake with a raspberry sauce. When the waiter brought it out sadly it had a hair right on top of it so I asked them to switch it. 5 minutes later they apologized and brought out an extra dessert on the house, for the inconvenience. They brought out a tiramisu and if you are a coffee lover, you will fall in love with this dessert. Then we dug into the cheesecake, which was divine. It really needed that sweet sauce to complement the sour taste of the cheese, it was the perfect balance.

From the service which was amazing, to the ambiance, to the food, the decor, the whole experience at Derech Hagefen was amazing. If you have never been or coming to Israel to visit, or looking for a unique place to go out to eat, you must try Derech Hagefen!

 

 

 

 

 

Bandora Shawarma is Really onto Something!

Bandora Shwarma

Who would have thought that someone could reinvent the shwarma? Well the owners of Bandora shwarma did. Bandora (Badatz beit Yosef) is a new shwarma chain that has been around for less than a year and has really made an impact in the fast food world of Israel. The concept of theirs is to cook the shwarma open a horizontal fire pit. Just like in south american BBQ style. Over an open spit slowly rotating and letting the fat drip so the smoke really penetrates the meat and enhances the flavor of the meat. Unlike your standing shwarma joints who all do the same thing, they really have a winner here.

 

Every Bandora shwarma is franchised with guidance from the home office so wherever you go it will taste the same, and I can tell you, that is absolutely true. I have eaten their shwarma in Kiryat Gat in the south and in Jerusalem as well, Everything is the same. The layout, flavors, service all the same.  So far I have tried two of the ways they prepare the shwarma. One is right off the spit into a pita or laffa bread, the other is where they cut it off the spit and give it a real nice kick with some heat.

Let me explain a little more about the shwarma, the meat has a real nice smoke flavor to it, the laffa bread is very durable and is able to hold the generous portion that they give each customer. The condiments are made in-house, not the hummus though, but the schug, tehini and all the sides are prepared in-house. The pickles have a great crunch, the cabbage is sweet with a touch of vinegar and the fries are industrial, but no ones perfect right.

I have to declare that Bandora shwarma is definitely one of my top 5 shwarma joints in the city of Jerusalem. Every Bandora around Israel is Kosher! Everything is just great there from the way they present the food, to the take away even. It is a bit on the pricier side on the shwarma circuit, but it’s definitely worth the money. So if you find yourself in the area with a branch and are looking for a fast bite, I highly recommend it!

Tzidkiyahu’s Steakhouse, one of the oldest in Talpiyot

Tzidkiyahu Steakhouse

The Israeli steak house definition is very different then a steak house that you would find in the USA. A steakhouse in Israel specializes in grilled meats on skewers. Tzidkiyahu is one of those places that have perfected the formula to a successful stekiya(steakhouse). At Tzidkiyahu, they bake their own fresh pita bread and laffa’s on site, it doesn’t get any fresher than that. The same goes for all the salads, they are made in-house. This is why Tzidkiyahu has been around for so many years.

When you sit down the first thing they do after you order is bring you a massive amounts of fresh salads and the fresh bread I mentioned before. They where all scrupmtious. The fresh chummus, the coleslaw, the eggplant, tehini, the list goes on. They where all delicious. Then came the main,  pargiyot(spring chicken) skewers with a side of rice and beans and hand cut fries. The chicken was cooked perfectly and seasoned with the right amount of seasoning and not taking away from the grilled flavors as well. The side dishes were a great compliment as well. The fries where crispy, and the rice and beans were done middle eastern style that have a little flair to them. All in all Tzidkiyahu is a great place to go and enjoy a great simple meal, and also has the room to host parties as well. So if you find yourself in the Talpiyot area for lunch, you should walk in and give it a shot.

Tzidkiyahu, Yad Charutzim 21 Talpiyot, Jerusalem, Kosher Rabbanute Yerushalayim

 

Sovah really is filling Shwarma in Bayit Ve’Gan

Sovah 

I went yesterday to visit a family relative of my wife’s in Bayit Ve’gan who is recovering from a light heart attack and thought, maybe I should take things down a notch with the food. So across the street from the apartment, there’s a bakery, a bank and a recently re-opened shwarmah joint called Sovah(kosher mehadrin, badatz, shmita lechumra). So obviously, heart attack=shwarmah so I went there to get a shwarmah for my wife and myself.

While ordering I saw them prepare their own shwarmah pit. I have to say, it was very impressive. Most shwarmah joints just order the meat ready to go on a spit and everything, so seeing them do this in-house was very impressive. Not only was it marinated in-house and stacked up nicely, they only use beef. almost everything there was prepared in-house, and for a greasy spoon in Bayit Ve’gan, that’s pretty impressive.

When I buy a shwarma, I judge it in a couple of ways: First off is flavor of the meat. Is it dry, flavorful, spiced well. Then by the laffa bread: How thick is it, is it fresh. Then I check out the condiments, are they fresh, prepared in-house. Then the fries; are they store-bought or made in-house. And finally the girth of the whole thing. I mean is how they pack it up, the meat to condiment ratio that the meat has to be even or more than the sides going into the laffa, And lastly, if I can hold it in one hand or in two. Not many places hold up to my standards, but if you do find a place  like that, go back for another because you won’t find many like that around.

So I ordered myself a classic shwarma; chummus, salad, pickles, coleslaw, tehini a hint of heat and hand cut fries from real potatoes and of course the meaty goodness, and boy did they stand up to my expectations. The meat was seasoned perfectly, it was moist and full of flavor. the salads and condiments were really good and fresh and the laffa was very light. The only downfall of this was like in most shwarmah joints that cut their own fries is that they only fry them once. It’s disappointing because then the fries are limp, soft and soggy. All they have to do is fry them again and it makes such a difference. Otherwise it is a great shwarma and one of Jerusalem’s best in my opinion, and there a are a lot so that’s saying something. The guy’s behind the counter were nice and it was a really great lunch experience.

 

Sovah, Hapisga 17 st. Bayit Ve’gan, Jerusalem