The International Women's Day I chose to celebrate with two friends at the West Side Restaurant. The restaurant is a kosher restaurant (not noticeable) at the Royal Beach Hotel Tel Aviv, with fascinating open kitchen, stunning food by Chef Omri Cohen and a pleasant design that stunningly completes the whole experience.
The road to the restaurant was very challenging, we had a crazy day of traffic jams, with a 40 minute drive that turned into a two hours drive. But luckily a unique menu was waiting for us and all we had left to do was sit down in front of the kitchen, and enjoy the varied meal the chef built for us. Let's start.
Frena (18 NIS), with aioli and olives. I was missing a good carb at the beginning of a meal for a long time, and here is where it ends. The frena came burnt and tempting on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, a dream. With her came a the aioli that was the best thing she could get. delicious. #yammmmm
Tunisian Brioche Sandwich (56 NIS), with tuna, ortiz, egg yolk cream, pickled lemon and salad gazpacho. The brioche was soft, the egg yolk cream literally stroked my mouth and the pickled lemon reminded me of a house taste (not my house, but still). In between we also enjoyed in touches of the Salad Chaser that came right on time to occasionally refresh the whole celebration. Yam. #yammmmm
Young Leek Confit (65 NIS), with scordelia, green garlic salsa, Thassos olive oil and sourdough bread with fried onions. The leek was so soft that all its strips just parted with a light touch. To really enjoy it, take a slice of bread, generously spread the scordelia and place a delicious strip of leek on top. #yammmmm
Yarokle Salad (64 NIS), with citrus vinaigrette, pomelo, beets and roasted nuts in cumin and honey. A light salad that combines fruit for sweetness and sourness, and nuts for crunchies. A nice dish with familiar flavors. #yammmmm
Baked Beets on Salt (56 NIS), with scordelia, pickled shallots, roasted almonds, honey and hyssop vinaigrette. Here too we got a cute dish, there is softness, there are beautiful contrasts of flavors, but we did not get enough flavors. Must say that Scordelia is one of my favorite additions, but I was less attached to its combination in this dish. #yammmmm
Eggplant on Charcoal (67 NIS), with Spanish Mackerel confit, cashew yogurt, rashad leaves and hyssop. A very special and original dish. The Spanish Mackerel came made and interesting and got flavors of tomato and herbs, it was wrapped in eggplant which gave the burnt, warm and deep flavor and all this goodness together got touches of yogurt with a very special flavor that came mostly from the a bit of tahini that was in, and it actually made all the fun for me. Spoon with everything and it's stunning. #yammmmm
White Spanish Mackerel (75 NIS), with fennel, oranges, Moroccan arisa, Thassos olives and sesame oil. The chunks of Spanish Mackerel were surrounded by dreamy ingredients, the arisa gave the deep flavor that made me fall in love, and the thassos olives brought me stunning saltiness. So I got a special concept for a dish that many restaurants are trying to get out of the banality area. A dish with deep and intriguing flavors, and yes, the best dish on the menu. Does not guarantee that I will not repeat this title for the rest of the dishes as well. #yammmmm
From here we moved on to an area that is more look like main courses. But before I will tell you about them it is important for me to express something important. I'm not a fan of main courses, they are usually heavy, disappointing and not interesting enough to me. But to my surprise this is not my experience on West Side.
Chicken Mesachen West Side Style (92 NIS), with onion, fresh leaves and white almonds. A dish of thin and stunning dough, topped with chicken in a confit that was dreamy, topped with touches of cashew yogurt, fun and sour flavors of Amba, a herb salad to and some tahini powder. Take all this goodness, roll it carefully, give it the bite of your life and make sure to drip everywhere (there is a wipe). A dream. I want it again. #yammmmm
Veal Almond on Charcoal (92 NIS), with shifka vinaigrette, frena pieces in a celery root salad. An exciting skewer of veal almonds placed on a delicious and comforting masbaha. In each bite, combine a piece of almond and a touch of masbaha and you get a big yam and an original dish with a real Israeli taste. From bite to bite we also enjoyed the frena salad that came with the dish, brilliant. A perfect dish. #yammmmm
Foie Gras (110 NIS), with onion cream and black pepper, and olive oil brioche. The brioche came soft, the foie gras delicious as expected, with this discovery I inserted my spoon from the top of the foie gras, through the brioche, caressing the delicious cream and yam. A dish that reminded me very much in its structure of the classic dish "Tornado Rossini" (foie gras on beef fillet). But ask me 100 more times, from today I only want foie gras and brioche. #yammmmm
After being overwhelmed with dishes, we decided to finally move on to the desserts. Hopefully I will stay until the end to tell how they were. We started with Choco West (56 NIS), a dessert of brownies, salted caramel ice cream, patisserie cream, sugared popcorn and caramelized bananas. A cute dessert of a variety of textures. Gave me the sweetness I needed. It's a dessert cup, so it is important to pay attention to the well-known law of inserting the spoon all the way down to get all the flavors. #yammmmm
Milfey Pistachio and Strawberries (58 NIS), dessert of homemade caramelized puff pastry, pistachio patisserie cream, pistachio ice cream and fresh strawberry and strawberry sorbet. Here too there is a cute dessert. the creams were less tasty for us and the puff pastry was a little hard. #yammmmm
ROSE dessert, dessert of malabi cream, berries, pistachio ice cream and raspberry sorbet. A dessert that is all about an impressive performance. It look stunning and his entire serving experience was very exciting. In the flavors we felt we were a little lacking. In general I'm less of a malabi person, so it's probably a bit of a personal taste. #yammmmm
It's a #yammmmm