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Asian Aquarius: The Israeli who fed the Princess of Thailand has returned to Israel, and he has a dream

A long and winding journey led Meidad Stavinsky from Tel Aviv to Hod Hasharon via Bangkok, and you can lean back and let him connect all the points on the plate

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• Asian food

• Thai food

Yaniv Granot

Tuesday, 27 July 2021, 06:00 Updated: 07:38

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Kopenhagen Thailand (Photography and editing: Ofek Rosenthal, Arik Rosenthal)

It was one of Thailand's top ten openings that year, and one of the 50 most successful launches across Asia, but every day when it was time for lunch, Meidad Stabinsky sweated in the kitchen, finished the service, and left his restaurant to eat on the street.

To the delicious Instagram page of Walla!

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if he fell on the right day - and in that Greek-Israeli-Thai wonder most days were right - it is likely that on the way out for the private lunch he moved the Princess of Thailand, or Chef David Thompson, or the "Aaron of the Kingdom", or just plain Celebs A LIST who suddenly discovered with his help that you can eat skewers and fish a little differently.

Less than two years later, I sit with Stabinski while he's about to turn into lunch at an Asian bucket restaurant, and looks out, wondering where he's eating today.

Outside, by the way, Lev Hod Hasharon replaced the center in Gankok, so from the beginning it's a bit of a tricky question.

He does not answer, and I do not press, so we both sail through thoughts of Thai street food, and find solace in the next dish.

Suddenly a fourth closure did not sound so bad

The Thai delivery that made us shout at home

To the full article

Demand for food at eye level.

Asian bucket (Photo: Assaf Carla)

"They took me three or four days to make me a waiter, but already at the first table they realized it was not it."

Stabinski's long and winding journey is a little longer and a little more winding than most of the food journeys that unfolded before me. It actually started rehearsing and leaving high school. "It was a very small settlement, and there was not much to do," he recalled, "there was a post office, there was a synagogue and there was a Yemeni restaurant, so I went to the moderator, I went to Arabic, in between there were classes. I was drawn to it."

From the synagogue he moved to a restaurant. "It took me three or four days to make me a waiter, but already at the first table they realized it wasn't that," he laughed. He made his way home, but "Moses the cook grabbed me by the hand and said he needed help." He spent his days peeling potatoes and washing dishes, until "suddenly I arrive in the morning, and Moshe does not arrive. Within a month I built a shawarma skewer and made leg soup, baked Kaunas and opened a cash register and closed a cash register."

From there, to the army, to the "half-wasted-half-strange" route in Nahal Haredi, and to the release that followed, he immediately returned to the kitchen - French restaurant in Kfar Ruth> Five years in Eilat restaurants and hotels> Absolute failures and dizzying success> Tel Aviv> Abraxas of Eyal Shani.

Then, just when he felt "that his learning had stopped", a phone call that was mysterious and Hollywood and fantastic, and all in the same ring.

On the other side - three Chabadniks from Thailand.

A delicate game of balances.

Asian bucket (Photo: Assaf Carla)

"They put 12 gas stoves on me for an entire street, huge pots. Around me GSS men and security guards close all the entrances and exits, snipers on the roofs, and I cook."

This conversation led to a relatively quick meeting in Beit Dagan, a relatively slow screening process (how long would you feel it takes when a job offer in our favorite island state is on the agenda?) And a test meal in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. "I cooked homemade food there - chicken soup, things I thought travelers wanted to eat," he said.

There, his Thai story began.

The initial goal was taken from a film by the Cohen brothers - the establishment of a rural slaughterhouse in Copenhagen, which would serve the needs of the Jewish community in the country. Stevinsky would come every two weeks for a few days, managing the place's knife-rhythmic strip, from a cow to vacuum bags containing chunks ready for goulash.

Slowly, he began to dominate more and more food and kitchens, and the culmination of this Chabad system was, naturally, the Seder night of that year. And this is the most unnatural Seder night there is.

"We were in Copenhagen and received a targeted alert for a terrorist attack on targets of the Jewish community there. The building itself was not trained in time, so we found ourselves lifting a Seder on the street," he recalled. . surrounded by his interrogators and guards closed all entrances and exits, snipers on rooftops, and I cook, serves food to 3,000 people Pesach. "

year-long development of that system ended assembling work schedule Chabad Israeli-Thai dense and complex - A bit of Israel and a lot of flights - during which Stabinski tried to decipher what his next step was.As usual for him, it was a step written by a screenwriter with a sense of drama.

The distillation of the dish.

Asian bucket

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"You sit and get chickpeas and pastries and good pita and ten salads, and khomin on Shabbat, and Burmese workers cut geeks"

Stabinski was already "with the bag, on the way to the airport," when an Israeli guy grabbed him by the hand and said he had a restaurant and a guest house. "I need help. Come for two or three weeks, teach the crew, postpone your flight," he asked.

Flights were postponed, oaths became months, and Stevinsky knew someone and was no longer with the bag on the way to the airport. The next step - work in the center for the mythological traveler. "I approached them and agreed on a very low salary, which would go up if everyone was satisfied. We took one branch and became a huge organization with seven branches, Bangkok and Kopenhagen, Chiang Mai and Cosmoi."

Stabinski, the "flying chef," as his friends put it at the time, skipped from place to place. "Every week you are in a different branch, teaching Burmese workers, for example, how to bake pitas and how to make chickpeas, and in the end Israeli cuisine comes out.

Five or six years like this, and beyond, for the Greek adventure that opened the article. "I felt like I wanted to do something different, a little more fine, accurate. I befriended the guys from Australia who brought in a very large investment, a Greek restaurant with a charcoal grill, social dining, half-club. Sit down and have about eight dishes in the center of the table, dreamy and soufflé and baked feta Also Matbucha and Ikra as we like, things we know and they do not. "

Except for the princess, "all of Thailand's obesity and agony got there," he said, "it exploded terribly, finally a real Mediterranean in the country." The base was an amazing grill, "one of the best there is", but it was wrapped in plastic already on the first day and led to the warehouse. "Instead, I wandered around half of Bangkok looking for a locksmith to make me a BBQ and stainless steel skewers, and someone to sell me coals of lemon wood."

There was a "real kebab," and there was ecstasy.

"Groups of 30 Thais opened a table and did not understand where it came from. They have great and delicious skewers of course since time immemorial, but suddenly they are told to smear with lemon and put oregano and dip in tzatziki, and there is a Moroccan fish similar to Tom Yum but not Tom Yum, and tahini and arisa."

And all those years, he went out on the street.

At noon to eat and drink and have fun with "corrupt cops", and on days off with the camera.

"My pleasure is to walk for hours on the street. I would go out at ten in the morning and come back at six in the evening, and all this time I went and took pictures and stopped and tasted, asked cooks how to prepare, and told them I was a cook and went in to cook with them."

Both for you and for the diners.

Stavinsky (Photo: Assaf Carla)

There is no Thailand here that beats you hard and expects you to succumb to the flavors.

There is definitely Thailand here that embraces comfort, knows you are far from it and just wants to mention how good it is

The result of those cooks and rounds and photos and meetings is the successes he has been serving for almost two years in an Asian bucket, food that is one of the closest to Thailand in Israel today, and at the same time very smart in his attitude towards the Israelis themselves.

"Eventually you realize you're on the other side of the world, and you have to create something that is both for you and the diners," he explained, "the audience helps me understand, and I know the base, the refining of the dish, remains. It's not a fusion, but a game. "Gentle. People who eat feel the difference. That's it, just 'like I ate there,' and yes, Thais also come to eat here."

These statements, quite common in an industry that likes to make statements but less likes to stand for statements, are recorded with one eyebrow raised. She returns to her place with the first defeat. There is no Thailand here that beats you hard and expects you to succumb to the flavors. There is definitely Thailand here that embraces comfort, knows you are far from it and just wants to mention how good it is.

Shummy dumplings, for example, handmade chicken-ginger-green dumplings, or an airy bun with crispy white fish, kimchi and Japanese mustard aioli.

There are also mains based on noodles and steaming curry dishes, a “don burri” wing (salmon, entrecote, chicken or mushrooms - all on garlic rice with greens and soft-boiled egg) special and real sushi, with no fireworks before and with fireworks after.

No take-off, no fusion.

Asian bucket (Photo: Assaf Carla)

"These street walks, the food, the simplicity, the flip-flops, the price. Everything is light there. It's Thailand, it's not anywhere else."

Stabinski, 39, landed in an Asian bucket in early 2020, shortly before the Corona, following a "flirtation" with one of the restaurant owners where he previously worked in Tel Aviv. "We kept in touch, and at the end I said 'why not.'

This puzzle is, among other things, an understanding that there is a large crowd of families here, and a demand for food at eye level, "but very, very important to me, and I insist on it, fat will never be a take-off of something or a fusion of something, "But be original. If I make a fish, then I make a fish that fits there, and that the audience will love as well."

Do you miss the streets of Bangkok?

"Very. These wanderings on the street, the food, the simplicity, the flip-flops, the price. Everything is light there. It's Thailand, it's not anywhere else. I can not stand it, I remembered Israel as a much more stressed and much more problematic place than I found when I returned.I do not go through many days of heartbreak from longing "

Are you still filming here?

"I'm less interested, and even when you walk around with a 200mm lens in the Carmel market and take a human view, the human view shouts at you"

Instead of a camera, he makes food, and toils for a cookbook that not only cooks but should also take the reader through the maze of streets Bangkok to the perfect dish, in a kind of simple-simple, but ingenious idea, one that leaves you wondering how it has not been here before.

"My ambition was to come to Israel and give what I know - Thai cuisine and culture.

I want to clear the regrets and give a product that is really real, "he concluded," and the really big dream is to make Thai Street accessible to the Israeli street. "We look outside again and can imagine the carts, the smells and the taste. Something here is brewing.

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