Friday, December 16, 2011

Goshen (Tel Aviv) 12/2011

We would never have found this popular place at 37 Nachalat Binyamin St , in an old part of TA but for an accidental meeting through the I'net with Israeli wine map maker and blogger, Yossi David and his wife Dina. http://yossiswinepage.wordpress.com Known by some as the meat locker this is a specialty meat restaurant with a gimmick. This is not a bad thing. It is in an old street full of atmosphere with busy restaurants, cafes and night clubs.
It's a good size split level kosher restaurant.
The warm atmosphere is contributed to by the lighting, the well spaced large wood topped tables and friendly and informative waiters.
We were offered an a la carte or degustation menu and chose the latter. We had a choice of entrees and selected four to share. A tuna salad needed a magnifying glass, these slices of fish were very slender.
unlike a voluminous green salad. Their chicken liver, topped for decoration, with a potato crisp, was over cooked and the last entree, some sort of eggplant and cereal mix which was the best as far as I was concerned, but I cannot recall what it was! These came with a very good house made focaccio. Next they brought a large stand to the table with six candles. A metal tray filled with about 500 gm of a variety of meats, chicken breasts, steak, sausages, meat balls all spread over small potatoes. This was a massive amount of food and good as it was we could not quite finish it. The steak was cooked in two lots one rare and one medium. It was very tasty, from the barbecue, and tender too. Nothing was dry. This is not an elegant presentation but the products were good the seasoning was good and the whole lot was very similar to a BBQ one might have at home.Being kosher allowed no milk products for the desserts. The sorbets were quite reasonable but I preferred my chocolate souffle which was in a form that might have been renamed for more accuracy as it was not a souffle at all. Two chocolate puddings and an ice, probably made from soy beans.Two other desserts were OK but there is nothing like milk and cream to make super desserts.There was an interesting bottle on the table which was actually there wine list! but they allow BYO wine as long as it's kosher. We drank a lovely wine from Na'aman winery, a blended 70% merlot. Our friends also brought a bottle from a small and unique wine maker who makes his wine in his apartment. Israeli ingenuity is unbelievable. We drank it the next night and it was remarkably good.This is the sort of thing they have on their regular menu:

House Focaccia Bread

Liver Trio: Chicken, Zuchini, & Eggplant

Briciola with Balsamic vinegar with salad and baby Focaccia

Beef and Lamb Mini Kababs grilled with garlic and tomato served on an open-face pita



Entrecote Steak. 300, 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Sinta Steak, 300, 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Beef Fillet 300, 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Lamb Chops 300, 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Lamb Asado 600 gram 1Kg

Veal Rib 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Goshen Mix (Spring chicken breast, Kabab) 400, 600, 800 gram 1Kg

Score: 13.5/20

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