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We swallowed, licked, exploded.
And this is even before the meat: a mandatory food station was born in Israel
The stuffing is awesome, the dumplings are perfect and the knapsack made us think about moving apartment: Avi Efrati found a crazy food deal (and not just because of its price)
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Sahara Palace
Al Babur
Stuffed
Restaurants in the north
Knape
Avi Efrati
Thursday, 22 April 2021, 06:00 Updated: 11:22
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Yes, drive especially.
"Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
The elite Arab cooking scene erupted in a storm into the life of the food community in Israel in the last years of the previous millennium. It was Chef Duhol Spadi from Diana Restaurant in Nazareth and the brothers Hossam and Nashat Abbas Mal Babur in Wadi Ara who put the Arab-Shami cuisine on the map.
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Until then, Israelis in Arab restaurants ate food that is more correct to call "Mizrahi". That means there were too many canned salads as starters, skewers for mains and Bavaria for its biases for desserts. Many of the genre's restaurants were housed in gas stations and salads where they always arrived on the house.
Diana and El Babur taught Israelis to look at Arab food differently. With very high quality raw materials, based mainly on lamb, a place of honor for bloody vegetables and weed singing, and a completely different range of refinement and nuances.
Shami surface food is traditional, as opposed to creative, with insane attention to products and execution.
It is an Arab food that has its roots in the Galilee, southern Lebanon and southern Syria - an area that was perceived as a common geographical, cultural and culinary space until 1916, then divided into sectors according to Sykes Pico agreements, which in the future will serve as a basis for national division.
"Another year I'm the smartest man in Tel Aviv, or the most idiot"
A pretty perfect pita is about to get a criminal upgrade
To the full article
Good news from the north.
"Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
But the glorious and promising launch of the elite Arab cuisine in Israel did not go on as expected. Over the years, some very worthy restaurants have been added to El Babur and Diana, including serious professionals, but these have shone for only limited periods of time and will be very popular later on.
In fact, when you look at the group picture of the really good genre restaurants today, you are left with quite a bit. Chef Omar Ilwan desperately wants but has a hard time. Yosef (Zuzu) Hanna performed wonders in Magdalena only when Hamudi Okla ran his kitchen there. When he left, it was no longer that.
Okla, on the other hand, a truly rare talent, left Magdalena at the time to cook Italian at Italiano de la Costa, in Haifa. Now he is no longer there, and it is to be hoped that he will be able to recreate that wonderful tenure in Magdalena in Acre.
And there is Duhul Spadi. One of the best chefs in Israel in absolute terms, who two and a half years ago left Diana, and since then has had a hard time finding his way - and how unfortunate that is.
In the group photo of the best restaurants in the sector, therefore, there are currently very few places - left in the village of Rama, El Babur in Wadi Ara, Luna in Nazareth and possibly also Rula in Haifa.
So far.
Undoubtedly too little given the huge potential.
How happy to announce that a new player has entered this exclusive group photo in recent weeks with great vigor.
"Bar in the Sky"
They already had an amazing view and a tremendous sunset.
Now my darling has come to make food here
To the full article
Showcase.
"Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
The bearer of Abbas is the most introverted figure among the Abbas brothers, the men of El Babur. His older brother Hossam was much more exposed to the media. His participation in "Battle of the Knives" with Italian chef Alfredo Russo is very much remembered, and the cookbook he published (along with Nira Russo) - "Tahini, Acorn, Mint, Lamb" - sold well. Nashat led for many years the El Babur in Wadi Ara, and then moved to El Babur Yam, in Acre. Since the latter closed, in 2018, has not cooked.
He leads the new "Sahara Palace" himself. It opened a few weeks ago, with the return of the restaurants from the back of the Corona, in Kfar Nin, on Road 65, a little after Afula, and on the way to the Golani Junction.
The place where it is located used to operate, under the name "Sahara", a restaurant that did not leave a significant mark. Abbas flies the large and stylish space, overlooking the fields of the Jezreel Valley, to completely different provinces. The meal we ate there last week was really great.
Flies to other districts.
Abbas at the "Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
The menu of the "Sahara Palace" is extensive.
It also includes a steak section, and a fish and seafood section.
We focused on the Arab-Galilean-Shami cuisine that includes salads, a weed section, an expanded mid-course section, oven mains and charcoal grill mains.
We went for the double Shabbat deal called "Sultan's Meal", which includes nine dishes for NIS 170 per head (excluding dessert), all from the regular menu, in increased proportion, for two diners, in a delicious meal format.
Instead of the traditional pitas, two focaccia pitas came to the table - one with sheep's cheese and cherry tomatoes and one with olive puree.
Beside them came, as part of the deal, a pitcher of lemonade and a truncated pitcher of homemade, with a very slight sweetness, clearly unburdening.
Immediately afterwards we received from the Mazatim division Magdos - eggplants stuffed with nuts and spicy that were meaty, slightly sour, not too spicy and very tasty.
A green salad based on green almonds, cashews, wild fennel and basil also excelled.
This is the season of the green almonds and they, like the rest of the leaves in the salad, were fresh, fresh and seasoned with a confident and restrained hand, without any excess oil, lemon or salt.
Another dish came with altat - wild chicory cooked in onions caramelized in lots of olive oil and topped with a slice of melted cheddar cheese.
The green wild leaves were fresh and the caramelized onions added a dimension of sweetness to them.
Together, it was really great.
The addition of cheddar is an exception to the classic local cuisine, a sort of Abbas' attempt to wink at Western cuisines, except that the caramelized leaves and onions were so excellent that it was possible even without the cheese.
We swallowed, licked.
Sahara Palace dumplings (Photo: Shani Brill)
I tasted quite a few stuffed from the genre last Passover, on a several-day trip to the north that included quite a few restaurants. None of them scratch the bottom of these stuffed qualities
We moved on to the intermediate dishes, "between me and you" in the language of the menu. The mahashi plate (stuffed) had 8 vine leaves stuffed with rice, a small pumpkin stuffed with rice and meat, and two small bloody zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, seasoned with behart and ground cardamom, in hot goat yogurt.
I tasted quite a few stuffed from the genre last Passover, on a several-day trip to the north that included quite a few restaurants. None of them scratch the bottom of these stuffed qualities.
Riozo Freaky was the next snack, which included the smoked green wheat cooked with cream and mushrooms, accompanied by parmesan and nuts. It was the only dish at this meal, which all radiated excellence, which worked less well. It was impeccably executed though but the distinctly northern Italian combination of cream-mushroom-parmesan in the midst of the delightful levitation in the local-Galilean-Arabian trout spaces felt somehow glued, a bit like cheddar.
A plate of delayed leaves (wheel impedance) brought us back to the soil of the valley and the Galilee.
Spring is the season of the late and the cooked plants we tasted were wonderfully fresh, cooked as requested and seasoned gently.
They came alongside a sour, particularly good tahini.
After the delay came a plate of Shushbarak.
We are heavily addicted to dumplings stuffed with meat in yogurt.
Those of the "Sahara Palace" are without a doubt the pinnacle of the genre.
The texture of the dough was optimal.
The stuffing was based on good meat seasoned with a trusting refinement and the sheep yogurt in which the dumplings were cooked was really great.
Five dumplings were there.
We swallowed them all, licked the yogurt to the brim.
At this point one could stop, move on to the sweet and end the meal happy and kind-hearted.
But the mains were still before us.
The icing on the cake of the Arab-Galilean content world in Israel.
"Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
Two plump lamb chops, one for each, on a purple onion in sumac, with pistachio chips and pine nuts served to us. The meat, a "hybrid" variety (a local hybrid between Bloody and Dorf), was no less perfect. The meat was reddish, without a large layer of fat, and its flavors were meaty, delicate, wonderful. A sheer refined pleasure for lovers of lamb held in the hand and chewed with lust.
Now came the dish of mashed potatoes - 300 grams of lamb cooked in rice and spices in a "stew" - a kind of oven made of stone and earth, based on coals, in a pit dug in the ground, and as part of a traditional Bedouin baking technique. After this feeding we could not really eat from the shelf. We tasted like olive and it was very tasty, but most of it was packed in a box at home, and eaten after heating in the home-made microwave.
We did not really breathe but after such a purposeful display it is impossible without dessert.
We shared a napa (35 shekels) that gets a creative version here.
She arrived on a long skewer from the charcoal grill.
It had kaddif hairs cooked in samna, with Akawi cheese from the Kfar Tavor dairy, wrapped in milky pistachio and sugar syrup.
The waiter pulled out the skewer and cut the long roll into small pieces.
Acacia cheese at its best is the crown of creation, Abbas' treatment of knapsack was very much preserved from over-sweetening, and the coals added a smoky barbecue touch.
It was a celebration.
The rumors are justified
Put Wise, this shawarma is worth it
To the full article
Skewer celebration.
The knapsack of the "Sahara Palace" (Photo: Shani Brill)
In terms of Value for Money, the Sultan's meal is no less than a crazy deal.
At a price of a little more than a main course of meat or fish in every restaurant in Tel Aviv, food is served that can easily suffice for at least three diners. You can eat at the "Sahara Palace" for much less if you share a few salads and a main course for each diner.
The qualities represent the icing on the cake of the Arab-Galilean content world in Israel. All the dishes show true excellence using the best ingredients that the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee provide - vegetables, herbs, cheeses, yogurt and lamb - in a performance that almost always touched perfection and showed refinement, plenty of nuances and unequivocal totality.
So there is an old-new player, very impressive, on the field of elite Arab cuisine in Israel.
If you are a lover of it, drive there especially.
The food clearly justifies a trip from the center.
For those who live in the valley, hike in the area or travel north, this is going to be a culinary must-see stop.
One has to hope she is here to stay.
How happy it is to relaunch the restaurant review section, after the Corona break, at such a meal.
And the bill?
Sahara Palace Restaurant in Kfar Nin (Photo: Shani Brill)
"Sahara Palace", Nin, 04-6935101
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