Game of Thrones – Bertie

Fatush Salad

At the bi-weekly meeting with Elad and Adi I chose the new restaurant that was opened in King George Street. The street is named after George V, king of the United Kingdom. Bertie was actually the nickname of his son, George VI. The reviews I read about the place were quite good and I was eager to test (and taste) it.

Oxtail

Bertie is a small and nice restaurant that focuses on small-medium dishes that are meant to be shared. Their specialty is seafood though the meat is not absent from the dinner’s plates as well. We started off with a “Fatush” salad that contains Artichoke, different kinds of Tomatoes, Olives, Onion and dried Mint, and was a fresh and good salad that fitted as an appetizer for the three of us.

Spicha

Adi’s instincts led her to take Oxtail with Quince, Honey and Cinnamon on top of Friki (green wheat), which was a very tasty dish that gave us the feeling of home cooking. Comfort food for a rainy day. Elad took the Spicha – baked beef on top of a puff pastry, served with boiled egg. The Spicha was nice but quite small dish. For myself, I have ordered Calamari salad that was served with Labaneh, Grilled Tomatoes, baked potatoes from the fire and hyssop. Though had a bit too much of Labaneh, the salad was fresh and quite good overall.

Calamari salad

Elad and I were still a bit hungry so we took a Hanger Steak skewer that was served with stuffed onion. The beef was amazing, soft and tender, and had a delicate touch of sweetness that suit the beef greatly. For dessert we took the Malabi with grilled Peach that was very creamy yet tasty as the dinner came to a close.

Malabi

All in all we had a nice meal with a happy Greek soundtrack that suited our mood. Bertie is a small, unpretending restaurant with fresh food and good atmosphere.

The Check Please (3 people)

Fatush Salad – 37NIS
Calamari Salad – 52NIS
Spicha – 35NIS
Oxtail – 70NIS
Cava – 85NIS
Hanger Steak – 41NIS
Malabi -32NIS

All in all: 352NIS

Summary:

Food: Sea food with touches of Beef
Price: Medium
Location: King George

The Cizer-Kobrinsky Scale:

3.5 Forks

Contact Details: The Brothers

Address:  88 King George, Tel Aviv | Phone: 072-2512950
Opening Hours:  Sunday – Saturday 18:00-00:00
http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.food_item_place,382,213,3954,.aspx

Home Sweet Home – La Maison

Update July 2012: The place have closed its doors.

La Maison

For those of you who are looking for some healthy food, you can kindly get yourselves out before we start. This post will be fat, full of cholesterol & quite greasy – just admit that’s the way you like it.

Some of you probably had this dream once, that when you retire, you’ll open a deli up on the mountains, sell some quality cheeses & sausages and enjoy the rest of your days skiing around. The owners of La Maison, just next to Tchernichovsky 6, did just that only in Tel Aviv where no mountains are around…

Duvel

La Maison (Home in French), is a deli at daytime and – adding 4 tables & a bar – a restaurant- charcuterie at night. Though when you walk in the restaurant you immediately feel it’s not just a charcuterie, it is definitely somebody’s dream. A worm smiley welcome, a wooden décor and an open kitchen can be seen by everyone makes you feel at home.

La Maison specializes in sausages, sliced or grilled, and it shows on the menu. You can mix up to 10 different kinds of sliced homemade sausages to a plate (though each is priced on its own). You can also have one of the 3 grilled sausages as well as other varied courses such as sweetbreads, pork steak, mussels with smoked goose breast and much more.

Goose Prosciutto

We decided to focus on the sausages: Gal, which is a fan of German style sausages, took the grilled pork sausage which came along with a potato mash and mustard, while I (Shahar) took the French-style Boden sausage (blood sausage) which came along with roasted apple slices with bacon. WOW is all we could say about those two courses. It was 2 perfectly cooked-homemade-full of taste sausages. My only regret was that we ate them so fast I didn’t remember to take their picture (sorry). A third litre of a superb Duvel beer for each of us was a great escort to the courses.
Since our hunger was yet to die away, we also grabbed a goose prosciutto plate which was very good, yet way too greasy for us in that stage.

To sum this visit up, I would definitely go back to La Maison and I would almost call it a “home” if I didn’t think it would seriously harm my health. Visiting once in a while would make a fair compromise.

The check please (2 people)

Pork Sausage w/ potato mash – 57 NIS
Boden blood Sausage w/ roasted apple & bacon – 54 NIS
Goose Prosciutto slices – 34 NIS
2 X Third-Litre Duvel – 52 NIS

All in all: 197 NIS

Summary:

Food: Charcuterie
Price: Medium-Expensive
Location: Tchernichovsky (The golden triangle of King George – Allenbi  (Ha Carmel market) & Bugrashov)

The Cizer-Kobrinsky Scale

4 Forks

Contact details: La Maison

Address:  1 Tchernichovsky Street, Tel Aviv | Phone: 03-6206022
Opening Hours (as restaurant): Sun-Thu 19:00-23:30 Fri 18:00-23:30 Sat Closed
No Webpage

Don’t come alone: Tchernichovsky 6

Writing this blog is hard… every time we want to eat outside we need to go to somewhere we have never visited before (Don’t fill sorry for us, just send us your recommendations). This time we got another recommendation from Zipi & Shaul for Tchernichovsky 6 (shesh). This place used to be a nice place for takeaway of homemade food, and nowadays they move across the street (Tchernichovsky 5) and define themselves as a bistro.

The Bar

The first thing you can think of when you go to a place named Tchernichovsky is the great Israeli band named Mashina, the second one is the poet Shaul Tchernichovsky (your thoughts might be opposite – depends on the decade you were born at). When we came to the place we didn’t think a lot since it was a spontaneous visit.

When we arrived only two other tables were taken and we set on the small bar. The place has a very worm and special atmosphere. For example, their menus have a cover of a Tchernichovsky book (Asher Haya Velo Haya), and next to their courses you’ll find some of his poems. The other side of it was that we felt a very serious ambiance. The music was almost silent and you couldn’t talk without being heard throughout. The very small bar contributed to the stressful feeling.

Fish filet

We shared the first dish – calamari on the plancha, served on top of an eggplant and yogurt paste was simply fantastic! The calamaries were cooked properly and the eggplant paste was fresh and tasty. Shahar took the sausages made from white meat, veal & pecorino cheese that were served with mash potatoes and mustard. When he finished taking care of the dish nothing was left on the plate (though the mash wasn’t the best we had). Inbar took the fish filet. Every day the place serves a different fish – depends on today’s supply from the nearby market – Hacarmel. The fish was served with green-broken wheat & oven-baked vegetables. This dish was also very good and fresh. One of the oven-baked vegetables was fennel that had a very unique taste when it came right out of the oven.

Because of our upcoming wedding, we decided to skip the deserts, yet we should mention that they cook all their deserts in-house.

The check please (2 people)

Burned Calamari – 48 NIS
Fish Filet – 98 NIS
Sausages -68 NIS
2 X Cava – 50 NIS

All in all: 264 NIS

Summary:

Food: Bistro
Price: Expensive
Location: Tchernichovsky (The golden triangle of King George – Allenbi  (Ha Carmel market) & Bugrashov)

The Cizer-Kobrinsky Scale

3.5 Forks

Contact details: Tchernichovsky 6 (Shesh)

Address:  5 Tchernichovsky Street, Tel Aviv | Phone: 03-6208729
Opening Hours: NA
Email: tchernihovski6@013net.net.i
http://www.restaurant-tel-aviv.co.il/
English menu here: http://www.restaurant-tel-aviv.co.il/home_tshernichovski_6.aspx