Dallal (Tel Aviv) 01/2016

New Years Eve in yet another city. Not New York, not Melbourne, or Philadelphia and not Paris but Tel Aviv, Israel for the second time in three years.
This time we booked at Dallal, a popular quality restaurant in the Neve Tzedek area. 

It looked prety ordinary from the outside.

But was quite pleasing inside.

Bare tables with cloth napkins and goos cutlery were large enough and comfortable

Apart from their normal menu 

they also had a special NYE menu

Everything looked enticing. Among the entrees was a seared veal sweetbread roasted beetroot puree and horse radish vinaigrette, This I had to have.

It was excellent, the quite substantial sweetbreads not over cooked, tender and well prepared complemented by the accoutrements.
Sandra's forest mushrooms and mascarpone tortellini, hazelnut and truffled goat cheese cappacchino (sic) had excellent truffle flavour but was cold and hard, they took it back and soon after brought a new excellent serve.

Other entrees were also good, Three pan fried sweet scallops on a Jerusalem artichoke puree, shimeji mushrooms and seafood bisque were appreciated by our friends.

Something described as Fish Shavers, seared on cream of humus, onion and sumac on a spicy tomato and coriander sauce was thoroughly enjoyed by our dinner companions

Finally we had an extra entree for symbolic reasons associated with wealth in Italian mythology, Hope it works!

It was black lentils with roasted heart of white eggplant  with garlic, yogurt and melted brie. Evidently it is the lentils that count here.
Beef fillet, potato and chestnut gratin with Morning Glory leaves worked well

Sandra and I shared a fillet of halibut, gnochi in champagne butter and Morning Glory leaves in pickled lemons. The dish was handled with delicacy with welll balanced seasoning. 

We were not finished yet.

A pre dessert clean up

They were not quite what we expected.

White chocolate pannacotta, lemon custard, orange tuille, citrus caramel, grapefroit and Campari sorbet with a sheep's milk yoghurt was substantial, rich and decadent. I'd have it any time
 
Local strawberries and pistachio cake served with a white chocolate ganache, kataif, vanilla marscapone cream and red berry sorbet was a very texturally varied dessert especially enhanced by the kataif.

Brandied chestnut parfait, sable breton mincemeat, arlettes, vanilla cream brulee and candied chestnuts waqs a simpler but very satisfying final course.

This was far and away the best meal we have had in Israel this year (last year too!!)
For the record we drank Moet.
At the end of all that it cost about a quarter what we paid at fancy Paris and New York restaurants for NYE dinners.

Looked like a good time for a selfie
Comments Score: 17.25/20