New Job Celebration @ Yavne-Montefiore

Update July 2013: The place is closed.

Last week I (Inbar) was invited by my childhood friend, Tali, to celebrate my new job. We decided to go to the newest and hottest place in Tel Aviv, Roshfeld ‘s place, Yavne Montefiore. Yonatan Rosheld was known as a young and promising chef in the mid-nineties; after a few years of silence, he opened three successful places in Tel Aviv i– Herbert Samuel, Tapas 1 Ha’am & the latest one – Yavne Montefiore. The place is located on the ruins of the late Amichi, a restaurant that was closed before celebrating its one year anniversary.  The owners chose to keep the inner decoration of the previous restaurant – which was quite crowded. We were sat in the middle of two tables and felt as if we were a part of the tables around us. Yavne Montefiore does not have traditional menus – instead they have paper placemat with the dishes printed on it. We decided to go along with a recommendation Tali heard from one of her friends – to take mostly starters and if you’re still hungry take an entrée as well.  So we did… We started with a Beef Carpaccio, a Chicken Liver pate, a Tartar Steak & a Tomato Salad. All the dishes were served pretty much at the same time, and the small table was soon too crowded to handle them all.  We had to eat them one after the other in order to enable the waitress to take the plates quickly. We started with the Carpaccio – it was made from good beef and was quite fresh – but a bit small. Then, we went straight ahead to the Chicken Liver pate. It was served in a jar, a repeating motif in Yavne Montefiore, as you will notice later on. The traditional jam was served as a thick layout above the pate. Tali, a big fan of the course, declared that it was good but not amazing. She felt there wasn’t enough jam and that it was quite hard to share when it is served in small jar. The course was escorted by one slice of oven baked bread.

Tomato Salad

Third dish on the judges’ table was the tartar – it was served in a unique way – in a bowl with the fresh meat alongside with a bottle of mustard sauce and chopped onion & capers. The dish needs to be stirred by the diner as much as he wishes. This dish was a good use of fresh and tasty beef with no need for any further additions. It was a bit spicy but very good. We took the small version of the dish; apparently this size isn’t served with chips, as described in the placements. This was one example for the incompatibility between the kitchen and the waitress that was felt. To their defense, I should mention that once we asked them – they apologized for the misunderstanding and sent us the chips right away. The last dish of the starters was the fresh tomato salad that was made from various types of tomatoes in all kind of forms. The absence of bread during the starters was felt.

Shrimps Provencal

We were still a little bit hungry, so we decided to taste the “Plates du jour”. As far as we remember (we were students in French lessons in junior high), “Plates du jour” means Plate of the day. Indeed this section of the menu shows that each day of the week has a different dish. But we were happy to find out that although it was Wednesday, they only had Sunday’s plate. Looking at this incompatibility, we actually didn’t care since Sunday’s dish is Shrimp Provencal – with artichoke, white wine and fresh herbs. Though when we tasted it we were sorry it wasn’t Wednesday. The Shrimps were well cooked but the tomato sauce and artichoke did not knock us off our feet. Just as a comparison, two weeks ago I ate a similar dish, for the same price, in the Coffee Bar – The Prawns in white wine and artichoke. That dish was larger and much tastier.

Cheese Cake

The menu issue continues to the deserts as well; Yavne Montefiore does not have deserts’ menu but rather a waitress that comes with all the variety of deserts to the table and offers you to choose from her tray. Too bad she didn’t taste most of the deserts and couldn’t recommend us one. We took a cheese cake that was also served in a jar. The cake was topped with pistachio cream which tasted of almonds & lemon. As opposed to the Chicken Liver Pate, deserts were made in order to share. It’s quite hard to share when you have to push your spoon in a small jar that is held by someone else. In one of the latest issues of Timeout Tel Aviv (We have already mentioned that they are our spiritual fathers), Roshfeld was interviewed and declared this place should be for the common people – as in – affordable. You can judge it for yourself in the check. Only one day after our visit, the magazine had published a review about the place by Yuval Job Haragil (which is truly our role model). I think he liked the place more than I did – but at the end of the day I think it is a nice place to come back to in the next family gathering. The check please (2 people): Beef Carpaccio – 45NIS Chicken Liver Pate – 44 NIS Tartar Steak (small)– 44NIS Tomato Salad – 45NIS Shrimp Provencal – 88NIS Pepsi Max – 12NIS San Pellegrino (Large) -24NIS 2X Espresso – 18NIS Cheese Cake – 28NIS All in all: 348 NIS Summary: Food: Chef Bistro Price: Expensive Location: Montefiore / Allenby The Cizer-Kobrinsky Scale

3.5 Forks

Contact details: Yavne-Montefiore Address:  31 Montefiore Street, Tel Aviv | Phone: 03-5666189| Opening Hours:  Sun – Sat 12:00-16:00 | Sun – Sat 18:00-24:00 http://www.rest.co.il/sites/Default.asp?txtRestID=11440