Dominique Kitchen Bar served flavorful food at palatable prices.

Dominique Kitchen Bar. (photo credit:PR)

For the young executives working in the Ramat Gan Bourse, Dominique Kitchen Bar has long been the place to go for a quick inexpensive lunch between deals.

It is open in the evenings for dinner, and I recently visited with my dining companion to find out what trendy young Israelis are eating nowadays.

We were greeted by manageress Mika Salman and young chef Guy Tsarfati, both of whom emphasized how good it was to be working in a kosher restaurant and having Shabbat off to be with family. Well, some of us have known that for years.

The place is very clean and streamlined, rather hi-tech as befits its location, and colorful with red leather chairs, candles on the tables and a friendly informal atmosphere.

We asked Salman to bring us anything the chef especially wanted to showcase, as there is nothing we don’t eat.

First to arrive was a collection of dips and a basket of bread – but not just any old bread. There were ciabatta, toasted crispy whole wheat bread and a chunk of whole wheat bread studded with raisins, pine nuts, sesame seeds and watermelon seeds, which I could have eaten all evening. It was made, we were told, at the sister Dominique round the corner, which is a dairy restaurant and has a bakery attached.

The dips were also excellent – homemade tehina, tomato salsa with a za’atar kick and standard olive and balsamic.

Several starters arrived in quick succession: fried cauliflower, a very rich and creamy pate de foie with glace plums, a refreshing ceviche of fresh tuna and avocado dressed with coriander, diced salad and lemon, and a meatball on a skewer served with a beautiful pink sauce, which we discovered was made with tehina and roasted red peppers.

Although the napkins were paper not linen, the waitress replaced them at regular intervals which, in the end, probably turned out to be more hygienic, anyway.

The first main course to reach the table was the vegetarian option – gnocchi with fresh mushrooms, peas and carrot sticks (NIS 52). I’m not a huge fan of gnocchi, but this dish was definitely worth tasting.

Another veggie offering was potato carpaccio made from very thinly sliced potatoes (NIS 24). They stuck to the plate, and it was not an easy dish to sample – but full marks for creativity.

My companion chose the steak entrecote – at NIS 120, the most expensive dish on the menu – and pronounced it very satisfactory: tender, juicy, crispy yet rare. The potatoes that accompanied the meat were a revelation. Listed as “broken potatoes,” they had been baked, cut in half, crushed by hand and deep fried.

They were quite as good as one can imagine they would be after going through such a process. The other main dish, pargiot with polenta, was very tasty and tender and felt healthy, with no fat to speak of (NIS 56).

We drank draught beer, but there is plenty of wine available at NIS 29 to NIS 35 a glass, as well as a large choice of bottled wine.

For dessert I chose crème caramel, without much hope that it would be anything like the real creambased thing, and I was pleasantly surprised. Made from coconut cream, it had the classic burnt caramel topping and was very acceptable. My chocolate-mad companion had a selection of chocolate-based goodies, which included a creamy mousse, petits fours and Florentines. He seemed very content with the choice.

After the meal, we chatted with chef Tsarfati, who had returned from several years in New York. He told us that although his early influences had been his Turkish family background, especially his Turkish grandmother, he now sees his work as being a fusion of Mediterranean, Eretz Yisraeli and modern gastronomic concepts.

Whatever the reasons, the chef certainly knows how to turn out a satisfying and creative meal. And the prices are very reasonable. We figured the same meal at a posh Tel Aviv eatery would be three times the price.

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.

Dominique Kitchen Bar
Kosher
2 Rehov Hilazon, Ramat Gan
Tel: (03) 751-1144
Mon to Thurs: 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday: 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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Dining: Authentic Italian

CULTURE

By GLORIA DEUTSCH \

 

06/10/2016 15:17

Dining: Authentic Italian

• Gatto’s groove

• Holiday cheer

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The Tel Aviv Sheraton is hosting a month-long festival.

Olive Leaf Restaurant. (photo credit:PR)

During the whole of June, the Tel Aviv Sheraton is holding an Italian festival to show Israelis what Italian food is all about.

A well-known chef, Max Mariola, was brought over to plan the menus and show local chefs how to prepare the food in authentic Italian style.

Highlights of the festival included cooking classes with top Italian chefs and an Italian food market in the hotel lobby.

A festive dinner to launch the event was held this week in the Sheraton signature restaurant, the Olive Leaf, and the Italian ambassador, Francesco Maria Talo, was there mingling with the guests.

As the sun sank over the Mediterranean, guests drank Italian cocktails and listened to a two-man jazz combo playing unobtrusively in the background.

The snacks served were unexceptional, except for a small dish of fried fresh anchovies, which was a revelation. Who knew that anchovies could be so delicious and not at all salty? They went well with the variety of Italian kosher wines going around.

The dinner began with the usual basket of interesting bread and three dips – roasted garlic, pesto and oil and balsamic, which soon vanished as we waited for the first course.

This turned out to be the least successful of all the courses that were offered. On the menu it was described as a 65 degree egg, served with zucchini cream and flowers. Given our climate, a half-cooked egg is probably not the best choice, and the cream was very bland. The best part of the dish was the tempura-like flower, which was hot and crunchy.

Once this yellow, green and white concoction was removed, the second starter was much more appealing. It was listed as gnocchi with a fish ragu and olives. The gnocchi were crafted from mashed potatoes without the addition of flour, as the chef had heard that one of the diners needed glutenfree food. Although it was very tasty, I could not find a trace of an olive in my portion.

The situation improved even further with the arrival of the main course, which consisted of a piece of sea bass, lightly poached with cherry tomatoes, lots of garlic and chopped parsley.

This was perfectly cooked and very fresh, with a tantalizing garlicky flavor pervading the whole dish but not overwhelming it. The cubed courgettes and diced chunks of potato were all the accompaniment that was needed.

To end the meal, a modest dessert of diced fresh peaches in a wine glass topped with lemon sorbet appeared.

It was refreshing, and the sorbet was unusually creamy, but all the diners agreed that a drop of liqueur with the fruit would not have gone amiss.

The Sheraton is also offering business lunches within the framework of its Italian month. A three-course lunch will be available at NIS 250 and a four-course meal at NIS 350. There will be a good choice of imported kosher wines at NIS 25 a glass. These include a Chianti, a Montepulciano d’abruzzo (both dry red wines) and a Moscato dessert wine. Also on the wine list is a Spumante, described as an elegant white wine with a fresh and bubbly character.

A cooking class will be held on June 20 with Olive Leaf’s chef, Michele Bozzetto, and the cost is NIS 150. It can be booked at (03) 521-1122.

The Italian Trade Agency in Tel Aviv and its commissioner, Massimiliano Guido, are also involved in promoting the Sheraton Italian month and enthusiastic about their product.

“The Italian Festival 2016 in Tel Aviv is our invitation to discover throughout the month of June our world, our food, our culture: Italy!” he says.

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.

Olive Leaf Restaurant
Kosher
Sheraton Hotel, Tel Aviv
Tel: (03) 521-1122
Sunday to Thursday, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m

Ishtabach restaurant- Delightfully Kudish

Review: The star of Chef Oren Sasson-Levy's Ishtabach restaurant is the shamburak —a boat-shaped, meat-filled Kurdish turnover his grandmother used to make; at Link, the iconic dish is meatballs with steamed white rice topped with blanched almonds, made by the owner's mother, Leah.

Chef Oren Sasson-Levy trained and worked in some of Jerusalem’s finest restaurants—including the King David Hotel’s La Regence—but he always dreamt of having a place of his own. In particular, he wanted to devote his talents to recreating one specific dish from his childhood: shamburak—a boat-shaped, meat-filled Kurdish turnover his grandmother used to make.


Finally, 18 months ago, Sasson-Levy opened Ishtabach, a name meaning “the man is a cook,” but also reminiscent of the word “yishtabach”—from the kaddish prayer, meaning “may He be praised.” Churning out hundreds of shamburak variations a day, the restaurant became so popular it had to expand, doubling in size just a year after opening (although it is still a small establishment, by any standard).


“Everything we serve here—the bread, meats, salads and desserts—is made in-house,” says Sasson-Levy. “And so that every diner leaves with a sweet taste in his mouth, we offer up a complimentary spoonful of silan with tehina and sesame seeds.”

Ishtabach's shamburak

The entire preparation process takes place in full view of everyone. Sitting at the bar, one watches the chef take a small disc of dough and flatten and stretch it in order to start building the shamburak: first comes a layer of mashed potato, which serves to absorb the juices of the meat and keep the bread crisp; then a generous mound of meat filling, chosen by the customer from a list of about half-a-dozen possibilities; then some grilled onions; and finally, a dollop of chimichurri. The edges of the dough are then wrapped up to encase the filling, and the shamburak is fed into the imported Italian oven, just like a calzone would go into a pizza oven to bake. Seemingly in no time, the golden brown treat emerges from the oven piping hot—“lava hot,” as Sasson-Levy terms it. Too hot to handle, actually; it is meant to be eaten with the hands, so a minute is spent sampling from the little samplers of mezze while the main event cools.

The time between placing one’s order and taking the first bite is so short, it is certainly possible to call Ishtabach fast food. Except that the succulent meats are invariably slow cooked, so the experience is far from what we ordinarily call “fast food.”


Moreover, while the shamburak here is authentically Kurdish, its filling is what may be rightly called multi-cultural. The seasonings for the mashed potatoes are Indian, the ethnic background of Sasson-Levy’s wife Yasmin. Chimichurri, of course, is a popular relish originating in Argentina.

Mezze at Ishtabach

We sampled a cross-section of the shamburak varieties: the siske, tender and flavorful beef short ribs; chorizo, spicy ground sausage; chicken satay, delicious white meat chicken; and—my favorite—cheek meat that melts in the mouth. In addition to the mezze—hummus, tehina, spicy carrot, olives, tabouleh, cherry tomatoes with red onion, roasted red peppers, and a thick house ketchup that resembles matboukha—we had a large tossed salad, with vegetables and cashew nuts fresh from the market and the equivalent of a giant crouton, if you will, in the form of a flat, crispy pita loaded with zaatar.


There is even a vegetarian-vegan shamburak, consisting of the mashed potatoes, mushrooms, green onion and lentils; and for those who do not eat bread, Ishtabach makes a shepherd’s pie.


Whatever you eat here, it is washed down nicely with one of the three craft beers on tap from the Israeli boutique brewery Mosco.


Shamburaks are quite filling, but for those wanting dessert even after the free sweet treat, Ishtabach has an terrific flourless chocolate cake studded with amarena cherries, as well as a compote made with seasonal fruit.


The Ishtabach menu may be summed up in its slogan: “bread, meat and what is in between.” If you like any of those things, you must try a shamburak.

Link: You don't mess with success

Ishtabach and Link share a culinary heritage. Link owner Yehudah Aslan’s mother Leah came from southeastern Turkey, a region associated with Kurdistan. Her traditional recipes that have become a cornerstone of what is practically an institution in Jerusalem. You do not succeed for nearly two decades in the fiercely competitive restaurant business without making a name for yourself and garnering a loyal following of repeat customers.


“One of the most satisfying compliments I receive is when a customer tells me, ‘this is just like my mother used to make,’” says Aslan. “One constant that characterizes this restaurant is that there is always a ‘tavshil’ (cooked dish) of the day.”


That doesn't mean that Link doesn't also refresh its menu seasonally. It is now in the process of introducing its latest summer menu.

The indoor bar at Link

The other hallmark of Link is the generous portions. “Our guiding philosophy is that no-one should be hungry after eating a main course and feel the need to order anything else,” Aslan notes. Combined with the restaurant’s reasonable prices, the copious servings mean good value.


The ambience at Link is the opposite of tiny Ishtabach. There is a sizable indoor seating area, but most customers are drawn to the large, pleasantly shaded al fresco patio that is also the entrance. Although it is just steps from busy King George Street, the atmosphere is quiet and almost rustic.


There is a well-stocked bar, and two relaxing places to sip a drink: the spacious patio, and a cool, inviting indoor bar. In addition to the classics from around the world, there are also specialty cocktails listed on the blackboard. On the afternoon of my visit, the fruity Italian liqueur Aperol was featured. The Ap & Rol—with bourbon, lemongrass and ginger beer, garnished with large sprigs of mint—was particularly refreshing and bracing, while the Captain Passion—Aperol, spiced rum, passion fruit and cranberry with a lemon twist—was sweet with a citrusy tang.


The daily tavshil was khreime: salmon and cod croquettes in a spicy Moroccan tomato sauce. The fish combination was intriguing and certainly a first for me; best of all it was in a sauce that cried out to be mopped up, with the excellent multi-grain house bread with seeded crust.


The iconic dish at Link is Leah’s meatballs with steamed white rice topped with blanched almonds. The secret to Aslan’s mother’s venerable recipe turns out to be cinnamon in the tomato sauce.

Leah Aslan's iconic meatballs.

On the side, I had the Yehudah salad—for the most part a typical Israeli salad characterized by finely chopped vegetables, but with a little extra bite from chili pepper and cilantro.


The menu has a few dishes inspired by international cuisines, such as Italian pasta, New Orleans chicken breast, and an Asian curry named after regular customer Alon: chunks of tender, juicy chicken breast, cauliflower and mushrooms in a deliciously complex coconut milk curry sauce that leaves a pleasant tingle of gentle heat in the mouth.


For dessert, Aslan recommended the popular banana crumble: crunchy, buttery pastry atop warm banana, adorned with a scoop of chocolate ice cream.


Remarkably, Link has had the same chef for all of its 18 years. As the saying goes, you don’t mess with success.

Ishtabach: Kosher (mehadrin). HashikmahSt. 1. Tel. 02-6232997

Link: Not kosher. Ma’alot St. 3. Tel. 02-6253446