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Avi Efrati
Donis: We came hungry, we finished blown up (just let's not talk about the Arais)
The dishes here are large enough for all Tel Aviv restaurants together and most of the menu is reasonable.
Now it remains only to fix a few small things
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Petah Tikva
Fish restaurant
Fish and Chips
Fish
Avi Efrati
Thursday, 29 July 2021, 06:00 Updated: 06:50
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There is a scene outside Tel Aviv. Donis (Photo: Gil Aviram)
The restaurant scene is bubbling with new places, full of culinary pretensions, all of them cool and very important in their own eyes, some of them also really worthy. It is clear that the review section is bound to wonder about their pitcher, for the benefit of its readers. But the section has another commitment, which has to do with a little less ringing and wind.
To the delicious Instagram page of Walla! Food
All Avi Efrati's food reviews
have a scene outside the major urban centers and culinary pretensions centers. The role of this section is to learn and teach about what is happening in these places as well, which are accepted by quite a few diners. This agenda led us this week to the Donis restaurant in Givat Shmuel, also one of the news of the post-Corona era.
The SIV complex (Arava 1) in the city was discovered in the early evening hours of one of the last Thursday evenings as a bustle beyond anything we could have imagined.
Half a traffic jam at the entrance, some effort in the search for parking and also restaurants, cafes, an ice cream parlor, a huge liquor store and even a cocktail bar - all almost completely populated, with dominance for a religious audience.
We are used to hearing a little less about this genre of the world of partying, and we soon realized that no matter what kind of meal it was, it was good and relevant that we arrived.
When he closed for NIS 80, that was not the problem
A little more aviation, and this will be a great restaurant
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Popular, matter-of-fact, sympathetic.
Donis (Photo: Gil Aviram)
Donis is defined as a Greek-dairy-fish restaurant, and probably also kosher. The kitchen is led by Eitan Peer, who previously worked at Fish in Rishon Lezion. The unpretentious menu includes mazats and basic salads on the one hand, and winks to contemporary restaurants like ceviche and fish arais, and of course fish mains, without seafood.
We sat in the relatively small interior space, where the kitchen is open. The outdoor seating area is much larger. It is true that Thursday evening does not indicate the rest of the week, but the two spaces, which can contain in combination, in a rough estimate, about a hundred diners, were almost completely full.
Not a fancy restaurant is on the agenda, we knew that in advance but we understood better when we sat down. Donis is more reminiscent, if anything, of her skewers, only fish-based. This is what the short and unpretentious menu looks like, and this is how the atmosphere there feels.
The service is short, matter-of-fact, sympathetic but devoid of decency and sophistication.
Our expectations do not set a high advance.
The fishing here is based in advance on aquaculture, the vegetables are not on boutique growers.
This is a popular restaurant.
We were hoping for a nice fish meal, a genre that at its best could be absolutely cool.
The front yard of Tel Aviv
A few more wipes, and it will be possible to really come back here
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Real fairness.
Donis (Photo: Gil Aviram)
At the standards to which we are accustomed, such large zigzags reach such pricing.
Here came a pair of really large bowls, which represent generosity and considerable abundance
We started with two dishes from a category known as the "Kadima Begilim" menu: Balkan Ikra (NIS 28) and Tzaziki of the Ointments (26). At the standards to which we are accustomed, such large zigzags reach such pricing. Here came a pair of really large bowls, which represent generosity and considerable abundance. Ikra itself was not from the top of the genre, nor from its middle. She settled a little below average. The tzatziki felt better, thanks to a confident seasoning and proper raw qualities of the yogurt. He was kind.
We continued to a tropical ceviche (58) based on sea bass, with pineapple, yogurt, herbs, purple onion and chili. There was no finesse nor refinement. I'm also not really sure that the connection between pineapple and yogurt in raw fish contexts would be recorded as the decade's casting at the local restaurants and remembered in the Pantheon, but somehow, after we put the pineapple aside, a sort of reasonable Mediterranean ceviche was obtained.
This is not what can be said about a Bezalel market order (54) - actually a vegetable salad with feta and croutons.
It's true that this is a kind of fish skewer, not a chef's restaurant, but vegetables are not something that is compromised.
The feta cheese was actually fine and so was the seasoning, but the vegetables radiated fatigue of the hard kind and did not pay homage to the professional who signed them.
The muezzin started, we lifted to life
A magical visit to one of the best restaurants in Israel
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Stinginess is not the name of the game here.
Donis (Photo: Gil Aviram)
Even a modest restaurant that is modest, basic in basicity, should not serve such a dish
It is impossible not to get a little confused about the copywriter who drafted a dish on the menu called "Walk Arais of Agrippa Street" (59), and probably if there was reasonable food behind it, we would not be stuck on the name. But Walk, this was the culinary bottom of the meal, in terms of Greater Amikata.
What is defined on the menu as a fish mixture was discovered, quite to our amazement, as a cod and stir-fry mix, which looked ground, as opposed to chopped, devoid of seasoning and lifeless, creating a rather catastrophic effect on the palate. This was no longer about what would not go through gourmets. Even a modest restaurant that is modest, basic in basicity, should not serve such food. A large saucer of tahini and a fluffy tomato salad reminded, again, that stinginess is not the name of the game here but did not extract the dish from the abysses.
We continued to the filet mussar with olive salsa (108) which turned out to be not a bad dish at all.
A large, freshly sliced piece of fish in a plancha, topped with kalamata olives chopped in olive oil, alongside roasted zucchini and green beans.
It was a better dish than its predecessors, one that even if served in a restaurant of a less modest standard, would have felt legitimate and sensible.
As such, pricing reflected real fairness.
Beauty of a place
Perhaps the best new restaurant in Tel Aviv
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There is no reason not to.
Donis (Photo: Official Website, Gil Aviram)
We came hungry, seemingly not ordering much, but somehow we got to this stage blown up.
We gave up dessert.
We lingered a little longer and tried to tie the ends of this meal together.
First of all, as in the skewer, generous here.
Secondly, it is a place where at the moment there are at least significant gaps between the dishes.
In the better moments - the moral portion for example - you feel like a decent fish restaurant, and then the pricing coefficient transmits sanity.
No pricing justifies dishes like the arais, but other than that, the quality of the fish we sampled was reasonable overall.
The quality of the vegetables, however, is a little less.
The weighting of the whole meal places it somewhere on the middle shelf within the rules of the genre.
It is possible that with some work, not huge, on the stabilization of the kitchen and the raw materials, you can have a restaurant here of the simple, unpretentious and nice kind.
The potential certainly exists, now is the time for some improvements.
There is no reason why there should not be a kosher, modest and sympathetic fish restaurant in the Ono Valley.
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