This is not the worst restaurant we have eaten at, but it is definitely one of the worst

Thanks to the design, the inconvenience, the chaotic service and the quality of the food, Al Terras wins the title: the most significant bizarre experience of all time

Avi Efrati

28/04/2022

Thursday, 28 April 2022, 08:00 Updated: 08:01

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El Tras Restaurant (Photo: Afik Gabay)

Like the coastline of Israel in general, the shores of Herzliya are steeped in restaurants.

And just as it is almost impossible to find a really good beach restaurant in Tel Aviv and Haifa, so is Herzliya.

Generally, the absolute advantage of the location frees the owners of the beach restaurants from the need to make food properly.

After all, the audience will vote in favor anyway, because you need something to eat when you get up from the sea.

Still, every new opening of a beach restaurant that promises some qualities is an opening for new hope.

With this hope we arrived at El Tras, a Herzliya beach restaurant that promises qualities.

It is impossible to go wrong with the large investment made in the design of El Tras.

As soon as you enter it you see that it has expensive woodwork, sparkling lighting and an atmosphere of slightly old-fashioned citrus.

It is free from everyday life and it is possible that those who come up to it from the sea will feel a degree of discomfort in front of the compilation factor.

Speaking of the sea, the structure of El Tras holds a substantial prefabricated problem.

It does stand in front of the sea, but instead of being built so that it sits across its width in front of the sea, and from every corner where it is possible to branch out a little sunset, it is built vertically to the sea.

The restaurant's publications have very inviting pictures of looking at the beach but in reality this perspective is only relevant to some of the places in the restaurant.

The investment in elegance is not noticeable when it comes to comfort.

For example, we sat at a table with a chair on one side and a small sofa on the other.

The table is high, the sofa is low and its mattress is sinking.

And so, H.M., not exactly a short guy, had to raise himself with two pillows to reach the height of the table and also to be able to use cutlery effectively, because hello, we came here to eat and not to sink in sofas and contemplate the Zobor ceremony held at the time for the ambassador Turkey in Israel, who was seated in a low chair in front of the Deputy Foreign Minister to express Israel's displeasure with President Erdogan.

Has an interior designer who understands something in restaurants signed on to this thing?

If not, everything is clear and if so, wonder if he is in the right profession.

In the previous review

Animar leaves most restaurants in the country far behind

To the full article

Lamb dish at El Tras restaurant (Photo: Anatoly Michaelo)

Apart from the strange space structure and the user interface bordering the bizarre, El Tras is a kind of innovation in the 09 dialing area. The kitchen in it, signed by Chef Ala Yaakobi, is based on the Galilean Arab cuisine.

There are also all-round dishes like pastas, burgers and basic fish but they are not the main thing here.

The Arab-Galilee base is in a refreshing line in terms of the discriminatory generic food discrimination of Herzliya restaurants.

We Herzlians are;

Herzlians who go to eat in Tel Aviv.

This is because apart from the sweet Lola Martin of the restaurant Efi Alaluf, there is really nowhere to eat in Herzliya.

As those who belong to the natural and required target audience for Galilean Arabic invested in Herzliya, we proudly included all the flaws of the structure, design and comfort in the hope that there will be good food here and we will have a place to come.

From the moment we sat down until the end of the meal the bizarre took over every good part.

It started with music, which at the beginning of the evening was reminiscent of the music of teenage clothing chains and continued to the music of Gaza clubs.

The menu was served to us as soon as we were seated.

We asked if there were any dishes missing from the menu and were told that everything was there and especially recommended the Pukhara dish - a lamb stew with oven-baked vegetables, wrapped in dough.

We asked for a few minutes to think until we ordered but no one came to take an order for very long minutes.

When the waiter arrived it turned out that there were actually quite a few dishes missing from the menu.

We did not come here for steak, fish or pasta.

Most of the lamb-based dishes were missing, there was no shishbarak and also the glorious pukara, which the waiter warmly recommended earlier, was found to be missing.

El Tras (Photo: Anatoly Michaelo)

So we ordered the first two:

(NIS 69) and

(NIS 59).

The carpaccio came first and reflected a true promise: chunks of fresh raw fish alongside fennel, pears, spicy tomato salsa, mint and lavana.

The fish was fresh and good, the toppings radiated freshness without overpowering it and the whole array was delicate, quite tasty and also a nice success.

We are still waiting for the other first - the Halmajon, another waiter has arrived to ask what we would like for the mains.

He opened his remarks with an enthusiastic recommendation for the Pukhara order, which suddenly turned out to actually exist, or was born out of nothing, in an act of divine magic.

There was only one reservation: now she is without dough.

The waiter added that we really, really should order it and that if we do it now, because its preparation will take twenty minutes.

We ordered

(110 shekels) and

(120 shekels) when the conclusion was that the chicken would arrive first, followed by the pukara.

As you may recall, our other first - to Hamageon - has not yet arrived.

But then, exactly three minutes after the dialogue about a main that takes 20 minutes to prepare and needs now and quickly, the pukara suddenly landed on our table.

"But we're still waiting for the first time and you said the pukhara takes time," we tried.

"That's how it is with us, what is ready comes out" pulled out the waiter, who only a few minutes earlier had closed with us on a meal with a defined and clear structure and sequence.

Few words can faithfully describe how awful this cauldron was.

In fact, for a long time now, the HM has not bothered so much with such a bad and unnecessary dish: viscous, stiff, tasteless meat, with equally tasteless root vegetables. Its appearance was also clearly appetizing.

We are still wondering why we deserve it and here the halmajon landed on our table.

We realized that we would not eat the stew and turned to Lahmejon.

The sympathetic grove from the sea-carpaccio has already been cut off and the pastry with the minced meat and tomato sauce reminded me of food from a moving film in which the touch of a chef's hand is not noticeable.

The combination of flavors radiates randomly as opposed to synergy, the meat is seasoned in heaven and comes out of the oven with a degree of moisture not pleasing at all.

We further explain to the waiter why we are returning the pukara and the chicken arrived, full of rice, minced meat and roasted almonds alongside grilled vegetables.

It was completely dry, the stuffing tasteless and the whole event started to look like a fiasco.

We needed some protein because we didn't finish the washed chicken either.

Our level of interest in further researching the menu was reduced and many dishes, as mentioned, were missing.

We ordered

(75 shekels) that arrived and was completely banal, with no added value of a restaurant behind a chef, even if it was not as catastrophic as the two mains that preceded it.

We shared a

(NIS 38) for dessert, the basis of which was reasonable but the cream on top evoked associations to a kosher dessert based on vegetable cream, although it was clearly not so.

"No, Al Terras is not the worst restaurant we've eaten at in recent years, although it's definitely one of the worst we can remember, thanks to its overall entertainment experience - from the design, through the seating inconvenience, the chaotic service. M and plates throughout the meal) to the quality of the food.

So the attempt to import the Galilean Arab cuisine to Sharon seems like a failure at the moment. The hope for a proper beach restaurant in Herzliya will also remain unfulfilled

invoice:

Seafood Carpaccio - 69

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