Eat Like an Egyptian – Port Said

Two months ago we met with Yael and Yoni on one of the new trendy places in Tel Aviv (and not in Egypt as the name suggests) – Port Said. The place is somewhere between a restaurant and a bar and it is owned by the famous chef – Eyal Shani.  It took us a while to write the post but it was worth waiting.

Port Said is all about the cool-hipster style with old fashioned Egyptian music like Umm Kulthum played in the background by a gramophone (or something that sounds like it). You cannot book a table at Port Said and it is quite hard to even find their phone number. Once I tracked it down they told me over the phone that if we will arrive until 20:00 we should be able to get a table without a problem. Indeed, we were the last customers that didn’t have to wait for a table. People that came later had to improvise with a bench as a table.

The menu isn’t really divided to firsts and seconds but rather a wide selection of dishes.

Minute Steak

Yoni and Yael started with one of Shani’s famous dishes from the Miznon – the Minute steak and in addition some kind of mash of Soybean. The Minute Steak was quite good but the soybean mash was so awful that we had to ask them to take it back and asked for baked potato with Crème fraîche instead.

Roast beef Carpaccio

After a while of waiting we have also received our dishes – Roast beef Carpaccio &

Bread Salad

. Both of them were delicious. The Carpaccio wasn’t the classic Carpaccio that you can recognize from the typical Tel Aviv’s restaurants; it was seared before it was cut to a thicker level than usual.

Rooster Sandwich

After additional waiting Yael and Yoni got the “Rooster Sandwich” that they ordered in the beginning of our dinner, nevertheless the waiting didn’t kill their passion to the dish and they found it very tasty. I ordered Egg Salad sandwich while we were still short of one baked potato Shahar ordered earlier.

Baked Potato

The Egg Salad was very classic and even reminded me my grandfather’s egg salad that came from Poland and definitely not from Egypt.  The baked potato that appeared in the first act got off (from the kitchen) in the third. Finally we received the potato and it was worth waiting as it felt as it brought right out of the fire. With fresh touch of “Crème fraîche” and a bit of spicy green paper you can feel the Eyal Shani’s touch.

For dessert we took Guava marmalade which was a sweet ending to a very good dinner.

The check pleases (4 People):

2 X Goldstar beer- 47 NIS
5 X Peroni beer – 145 NIS
Minute Steak – 44 NIS
Bread salad – 38 NIS
2 X Baked Potato – 46 NIS
Roast beef Carpaccio – 37 NIS
Rooster Sandwich – 38 NIS
Egg Salad Sandwich – 28 NIS
Guava Marmalade – 28 NIS

All in all 451 NIS

Summary:
Food:  Advanced bar food
Price:  High
Location: Allenby street

The Cizer-Kobrinsky Scale:

3.5 Forks

Contact details: Har Sinai 2, Tel Aviv

Copycats – Fleamarket

We might have mentioned this before, but as tourists in Tel Aviv, you must not miss a night (a day as well, but nevertheless) in Jaffa Flea Market. The restaurant and bar scene at the “authentic” location not far away from Jaffa Port is becoming trendier as the time passes. Dozens of locations spread along the market area making it livelier at night than at day, and a great reason to visit. It is no surprising that the oh-so-2011 market-restaurants will arrive to the flea market. The name didn’t surprise as well – the Fleamarket.

Jaffa Flea Market @ Night

Well, unsurprising is probably what you’ll think all along your dinner (at least if you had some dinners in Tel Aviv). Yes, the location is great – the vibe coming from this area is quite laid back, almost like visiting the beach towns of Turkey or Greece. The vast amount of street tables is really fun and gives you the feeling of the old market coming to life. With that sort of pre-conditions, you would expect the food to match.

Andalusian Gazpacho soup

But it was so predictable. The same owners of the La Shuk restaurant from Dizingoff (which is itself a copy of Machne Yehuda restaurant from Jerusalem) brought to the Fleamarket the exact same type of food, with the same paper-menus-retro-metal-chairs, well, you get the point.

Tuna fish Nicoise Salad

And it wasn’t that the food was bad – a dish of Andalusian Gazpacho soup was OK, though not thrilling. Another starter of fresh Tuna fish Nicoise Salad was also not bad at all – it had some very classic taste achieved by a nice sauce. Even though, its pricing was somewhat high.

Black & White Grilled Calamari

The main courses kept the same spirit – tasty yet boring. The black & white grilled Calamari with goat yogurt was well executed, but we had the same dish in more than a dozen restaurants around town. The now-so-popular grilled sweetbreads had also some classic tastes in it, and it was rather the grilled Artichokes, Fennel and Beet that gave the bit-more-special variety to the dish.

Grilled Sweetbreads

Along with some Cabarne Franc white wine that was recommended to us, we have decided that market restaurants have finally lost their excitement in Tel Aviv restaurant scene. Though it doesn’t mean it will be easy for you to find a table in the Fleamarket, don’t expect it to surprise you in any way.

The Check Please (2 people)

Red Tuna Nicoise – 69 NIS
Andalusian Gazpacho – 28 NIS
Sweetbreads – 69 NIS
Black & White Calamari – 49 NIS
Cabarne Franc (by the glass) X2 – 78 NIS

All in all: 283 NIS

Summary

Food: Market Food
Price: Medium-Expensive
Location: Jaffa Flea Market

The Cizer Kobrinsky Scale

3 Forks

 

Contact details: Fleamarket

Address: 8 Rabbi Yohanan St. Jaffa | Phone: 036202262

The hottest spot in Tel Aviv – Café Europe

This week we had a date with Yael and Yoni at the (currently) trendiest place in Tel Aviv – Café Europe. In Tel Aviv, where new restaurants open on a daily bases, every new restaurant has its 15 minutes of fame and since their lifetime is so short one should use it wisely. If last summer it was the Mizlala, this year (not very far away by the way), on the trendy Rothschild Street, it is Café Europe turn.

The trendiest place in Tel Aviv – Café Europe

When I say trendy I mean that anyone who is “someone”, should find himself drinking wine on their bar. It also means that three days before our meeting, when Yael called to make reservations the hostess “did us a favor” and “pushed” us between 21:15 to 23:15 (Gee, thanks). And it basically means that they can over-charge for anything (scroll down to the menu or stay tuned). Oh and yes, they don’t have an online menu so you won’t know that in advance.

Lamb Tortellini

The menu is divided to 3 sections. One would expect that the graphical division will hint for the difference between the dishes size (Or their role in the dinner) – appetizer, starters and main courses. But it didn’t. Café Europe does not have any real “large” size courses. All of them are between tiny and medium (if you are lucky) and I’m saying it while taking the dish price under consideration. Take the Lamb tortellini with dry fruits “main course” for example that contains five tortellinis and cost 69 NIS. It was a good dish but way too small to share. But first things firsts, let’s go back to the starters.

Tomatoes salad that every restaurant in Tel- Aviv must have

Dreams about Thailand – Shrimps Cutlet

The tomatoes-salad-that-every-restaurant-in-Tel-Aviv-must-have was executed as expected – several types of tomatoes, some grilled and some fresh, with a lot of garlic and goat cheese. It was good as the opening dish. Another dish we took was described on the menu as “Shrimps Cutlet, coconut milk and dreams about Thailand”. Well, they were right. In 3 weeks from now we will leave on a jet plane for a short vacation in the land of shakes and Pad Thai.  Until now, the longing was repressed. After eating this dish (and the Seafood plate later) – we cannot wait anymore. Thailand, here we come!

Polenta

Back to the table in the humid Tel Aviv – We took to additional starters that were on the specials board –“Polenta with asparagus” and “Labneh, Matbuha and Red Mullets”. Both of them were good and tasty.  The Polenta was yet another very little dish. The Fish were fried and had a deep “sea” taste which Yoni didn’t like but we found as good.

Labneh, Matbuha and Red Mullets

Hanger steak

While we were still eating the fish Yael mentioned she was pleased with the timing of the dished arrived to our table. At that exact moment, Shahar’s main dish had arrived to the table, too early to its time in the game. The waitress accused the kitchen for the mistake but took no responsibility for the failure. Shahar took the Hanger steak and while he was eating his dish we were towards the end of the starts. The Hanger Steak itself was very nicely cooked, medium-rare in the inside while still burned and crunchy on the outside.

Seafood Plate

For the so-called-main-course I took the seafood plate that I have already mentioned. I think it was the most surprising dish in the dinner. I wasn’t expecting to have more Thai tastes in this meal and this was a good surprise alongside with a crab that I managed to eat without making a mess on my shirt. Yael took that tiny tortellini dish and Yoni took Meatballs in Pita Bread. According to Yoni, the Pita wasn’t fresh and contained too much onion.  Judging according to the leftovers, it wasn’t as good as he expected.

Meatballs in Pita

We ended our dinner with Savarin cake (Rum baba) which was nice and a bit retro in my opinion.

Savarin cake

When we got the bill we thought it was a good dinner but it did not justify the price. On our previous post was about Elba, we had pretty much the same amount of dishes and paid equal price to the one at Café Europe. However, we could not escape the feeling the Elba was much more value for money, in the dish size perspective as well as taste. Nevertheless, at the end of the day we are all fashion victims. We meet at Café Europe because we wanted to know what everyone is talking about. Café Europe is just using their 15 minutes of fame.

The Check Please (4 people)

Bread – 13 NIS
Red Mullets with Matbuha – 45 NIS
Polenta – 32 NIS
Tomatoes salad – 43 NIS
Shrimps Cutlet – 42NIS
Seafood plate – 89 NIS
Hanger steak – 85NIS
Lamb Tortellini – 69 NIS
Meatballs Pita – 49NIS
Savarin cake – 32NIS
Coke – 12 NI
Diet Coke – 12 NIS
Traminer Wine – 168 NIS
Stela – 26NIS

All in all: 743 NIS

Summary

Food: Mediterranean (Were was Europe during this dinner?)
Price: Very expensive
Location: Rotchield street

The Cizer Kobrinsky Scale

3.5 Forks

 

Contact details: Café Europe

Address: 9 Rothschild street | Phone: 03-5259987 | Online menu not available