Quick Jump to Chinatown – China Court

For my birthday, Ron bought me original chopsticks from Japan. For a while we were planning to use them somewhere and we were looking for an occasion and a location. The occasion was end of school year for Ron and the location was China Court – a place that we heard a lot of from Shelly, our manager at Microsoft.

When you enter the place you feel the 80’s at their best. The pink napkin on the plates, the green tablecloth and a family restaurant make you understand that you are in right place for some authentic food.

Tsingtao Beer

We decided to escort the meal with a Chinese beer named Tsingtao. Then we started with corn soup which was very rich and thick. In addition we ordered Wonton Dumplings. The dumplings were fried and felt tasteless and therefore our least favourite dish in the meal.

Corn Soup

Wonton dumplings

Until now, we were just playing. The real reason we came to this place was the Peking duck that was highly recommended by Shelly (and for a good reason). The duck is cooked and taken out of its bones. It is severed with thin pancakes, cucumber & spring onion and an amazing sauce. In order to eat the duck at its best you need to take a pancake, put some duck on it, cucumber & spring onion, top it with the sauce and roll the pancake. Each of us ate several of these pancake, although we were feeling full, we still had some leftovers.

Peking duck

The roll

At the end of our meal, we felt as we did a quick jump to China (though there was no use of the chopsticks).

The Check Please (2 People)

2 X Corn Soup – 32 NIS
Wonton dumplings – 20NIS
Peking duck – 118NIS
2 X Tsingtao Beer – 50NIS

All in all – 220 NIS

Summary:

Food: Chinese
Price: Medium
Location: Ben Yehuda

The Cizer Kobrinsky Scale

3.5 Forks

Contact Details:
Shalom Alichem 14, Tel Aviv | +972-3-5178454|http://www.rol.co.il/sites/china-court/

Short Post About Gnocchi

This post is going to be extra short as the dish was so tasty that we forgot to take more pictures. It is based on a fresh Gnocchi I bought at Marcato, artichoke, chestnuts, reduced white wine and finally a small Perfusion of truffle oil and Parmesan.

Ingredients

Chestnut and Artichoke

with the Gnocchi

A True Stark – Aria

A while ago I was looking for a nice restaurant for some quality time with my husband, after I didn’t see him for a week while I was in Romania.  The decision was made to Aria, a new restaurant that has been on our “to-do” list for a while. Aria is located in a beautiful reconstructed building that contains 2 floors. The first floor serves as a cocktail bar and the second floor is a classic European restaurant of the promising chef Guy Gamzo. As expected, we choose the restaurant.

Aria Gin and Tonic

Since they have a cocktail bar on the floor below, I decided to start with “Aria Gin and Tonic” that contained (in addition to the basics) cucumber, spring onion, coriander dill & orange that made this cocktail very special and refreshing.

Coquilles St. Jacques

We decided to share three starts and one main dish. For starters we took Coquilles St. Jacques, Porcini mushrooms & Tortellini Raghu. The Coquilles St. Jacques were served in white almond cream and lobster foam that was amazing and we both really liked it. The flavors were fantastic and we had to fight for the leftovers.

Eggs & mushrooms

The porcini mushrooms was actually a dish of two minute egg on wild porcini mushrooms & smoked duck. Although I have weakness for soft eggs, this dish did not meet our expectations. It was served in a very special plate but the plate was not made to contain the yolk liquid that spilled over the plate’s socket.

Tortellini Raghu

The Tortellini Raghu contained generous amount of meat and had the feeling of a beef that was cooked on a low heat for quite a while. The sauce was also quite good and we wiped it with the complimentary bread we were served.

Duck breast

For the main dish we shared the blush duck breast in its broth along with strawberry coulis. Usually we don’t have a lot of opportunities to eat duck. This was a fantastic opportunity as the dish was absolutely amazing. The duck breast was cooked to the right measure and it was pink and soft.  The puree that was served with it was smooth and suited the dish perfectly. A true hit.

Lemon tart

For dessert we took the open Lemon Tart and Italian meringue with a zest of raspberry jelly. That was only a nice dessert, nothing more. But it did sign a very good meal of European flavors. We would definitely come back.

Summary

Food: Cocktail Bar & Bistro
Price: Expensive
Location: Nachlat Binyamin

The check please (2 people)
Aria Gin and Tonic – 47NIS
Coquilles St. Jacques – 65NIS
Eggs & mushrooms – 48NIS
Tortellini Raghu – 65NIS
Duck breast – 98NIS
Lemon tart – 42NIS
Sparkling water – 11NIS
2 X Espresso – 20NIS
San Miguel – 25NIS

All in all – 421 NIS

The Cizer Kobrinsky Scale:

4.5 Forks

Contact Details: Aria
Address:  66 Nachlat Binyamin St, Tel Aviv | 03-5296054 | http://ariatlv.co.il/

Homemade Banh Bao with Seared Tuna

A while ago TimeOut Tel Aviv have publish the recipe for Banh Bao, which is kind of steamy dumpling. This gave us the desire to mix it with seared tuna to get the Asian home made Saturday lunch. And this how it looked like:

The Banh Bao:

The Ingredients

Mix them all together

And the get a dough

Create balls put in a bamboo steaming kit

After steaming

Seared Tuna: While the dumplings are in the steaming process, you can start to work on its filling.

Marinade ingredients

Marinated red tuna

Coating of white and black sesame

Coating the tuna

burning the tuna on a plancha

Cut the tuna into slices

Sliced tuna

Cut radish into thin strips

Fill the buns with a little bit of wasabi

Insert a piece of tuna and radish

Decorated with chili pepper and cilantro

And the results

Results #2