Meat Celebration!
Yes, that's right, Meat Celebration! On the last night in Tel Aviv, my co-workers and I went to a place called Banar near the Shalom Tower (formerly the tallest building in Tel Aviv and a place of many suicides, according to the locals). This was a grand adventure as we were unaccompanied by anyone who spoke Hebrew, so any trouble we got in would be our own. A good percentage of the population of Tel Aviv speaks English, so this usually isn't an issue.....until you have to read a menu.
When you go into a restaurant in Israel, sometimes saying "Anglit?" (English) will transform the menu into something that's read from left to right and often a few Shekels (Sheqalim is how it's written in English on the paper currency) higher in price than it is in Hebrew. Sometimes such luxuries aren't available, like in the Hummus shops or other counter-service places which have great food and are run by people who barely speak Hebrew and enjoy that Arabic is the other official language of Israel. At Banar, a regular restaurant with bar, tables, and comely waitstaff, the English menu was a flight of fancy.
However, the folks at Banar were more than happy to translate the menu once the ground rules had been established: "You do understand this is a....meat restaurant?" said the polite and attractive hostess, taking over from the bartendress who spoke English reasonably well, but lacked a Hebrew-English vocabulary to describe cuts of beef large enough to pacify lions. We all nodded that a meat restaurant was acceptable (I figured that we were in for something along these lines as the sign had a bull icon of some sort on it). She could have said that it was a boiled Kleenex restaurant and it might have been just as entrancing for some in my group, but, no, it was all about the meat. The hostess went through the side dishes which were pretty standard fare: arab salad(tomato, cucumber, and dill), green salad, antipasti, and tomato soup. As she went through the selections for the main course, however, the attention span extended by leaps and bounds.
"There is an entrecotte steak which is juicy, a premium entrecotte steak which is leaner and more tender, and then <some words I don't recall> which is from the flank and is also good. Each is per 100g and most cuts are 250-300g. The last one is called....hmmm....<pausing to think of the words> Meat Celebration."
"Meat Celebration? Please tell us more!" we all say in pseudo-harmony.
"It is a plate of all the meat I mentioned plus ground lamb...."
Quick exchanges of glances show quick approval from the group about the direction of the meal: "Great! We'll take 4 of them!"
"It is for 4 people, so you might only want one."
"How much do we get of each?"
"It's like....hmm...400g per person."
"SOLD!"
From there, the minor trivialities of side-dishes and beverages were dispensed and the focus squarely turned to the impending celebration of MEAT. In the interim, the owner came by and gave us each a shot of Stolichnaya on the house. Apparently, this is standard behavior in restaurants in Tel Aviv, although it was the only time it happened to us -- and we were without our local guides! We got another round of shots as we were processing the incredible pile of animal protein that was presented before us.....on 2 plates!
Needless to say, we all slept well that evening, most likely because our spleens emptied their contents and shot all the extra blood over to our stomachs. The blissful state of being logy is wonderful when induced by meat.
Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio and his Israeli model/girlfriend Raffy something-or-other were at the sushi restaurant across the way, but we didn't see them. Honestly, there wasn't anything that would tear me away from the Meat Celebration.
I understood how Harold and Kumar felt in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle when they completed their journey and polished off all the Sliders and Cokes. I wasn't stoned, either.
Yes, that's right, Meat Celebration! On the last night in Tel Aviv, my co-workers and I went to a place called Banar near the Shalom Tower (formerly the tallest building in Tel Aviv and a place of many suicides, according to the locals). This was a grand adventure as we were unaccompanied by anyone who spoke Hebrew, so any trouble we got in would be our own. A good percentage of the population of Tel Aviv speaks English, so this usually isn't an issue.....until you have to read a menu.
When you go into a restaurant in Israel, sometimes saying "Anglit?" (English) will transform the menu into something that's read from left to right and often a few Shekels (Sheqalim is how it's written in English on the paper currency) higher in price than it is in Hebrew. Sometimes such luxuries aren't available, like in the Hummus shops or other counter-service places which have great food and are run by people who barely speak Hebrew and enjoy that Arabic is the other official language of Israel. At Banar, a regular restaurant with bar, tables, and comely waitstaff, the English menu was a flight of fancy.
However, the folks at Banar were more than happy to translate the menu once the ground rules had been established: "You do understand this is a....meat restaurant?" said the polite and attractive hostess, taking over from the bartendress who spoke English reasonably well, but lacked a Hebrew-English vocabulary to describe cuts of beef large enough to pacify lions. We all nodded that a meat restaurant was acceptable (I figured that we were in for something along these lines as the sign had a bull icon of some sort on it). She could have said that it was a boiled Kleenex restaurant and it might have been just as entrancing for some in my group, but, no, it was all about the meat. The hostess went through the side dishes which were pretty standard fare: arab salad(tomato, cucumber, and dill), green salad, antipasti, and tomato soup. As she went through the selections for the main course, however, the attention span extended by leaps and bounds.
"There is an entrecotte steak which is juicy, a premium entrecotte steak which is leaner and more tender, and then <some words I don't recall> which is from the flank and is also good. Each is per 100g and most cuts are 250-300g. The last one is called....hmmm....<pausing to think of the words> Meat Celebration."
"Meat Celebration? Please tell us more!" we all say in pseudo-harmony.
"It is a plate of all the meat I mentioned plus ground lamb...."
Quick exchanges of glances show quick approval from the group about the direction of the meal: "Great! We'll take 4 of them!"
"It is for 4 people, so you might only want one."
"How much do we get of each?"
"It's like....hmm...400g per person."
"SOLD!"
From there, the minor trivialities of side-dishes and beverages were dispensed and the focus squarely turned to the impending celebration of MEAT. In the interim, the owner came by and gave us each a shot of Stolichnaya on the house. Apparently, this is standard behavior in restaurants in Tel Aviv, although it was the only time it happened to us -- and we were without our local guides! We got another round of shots as we were processing the incredible pile of animal protein that was presented before us.....on 2 plates!
Needless to say, we all slept well that evening, most likely because our spleens emptied their contents and shot all the extra blood over to our stomachs. The blissful state of being logy is wonderful when induced by meat.
Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio and his Israeli model/girlfriend Raffy something-or-other were at the sushi restaurant across the way, but we didn't see them. Honestly, there wasn't anything that would tear me away from the Meat Celebration.
I understood how Harold and Kumar felt in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle when they completed their journey and polished off all the Sliders and Cokes. I wasn't stoned, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment