Umai (UMAI): In the middle of Jaffa a delicious Japanese island has been established, just take off your shoes and enter

Alex Abramov missed, and we won

It will yield money

26/10/2022

Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 08:00 Updated: 08:08

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part of the magic.

Umai (Photo: Amir Menachem)

A little less than 9,000 km separates the two last apartments of Alex Abramov, but only three steps help to close the huge geographical distance that stretches between the bustling center of Hiroshima, and between Abdel Rauf El Bitar Street in Jaffa. This, too, you understand quite early on , then in the middle, and even more so at the end of the evening, is part of the magic.

Outside, Jaffa does things she knows how to do. That is, confuses you with decades of neglect and dust, with an overly fluid system of garbage disposal, and with overly liberal assumptions regarding the release of nervous dogs in public space - And then you're startled by the ringing of a bell that hits a heavy wooden door, and you're instantly transported to another world.

In this world, it makes sense to take your shoes off at the entrance not just because you've just come from a muddy parking lot (why are all parking lots here actually muddy, rain or no rain?), and it makes sense who greet you in Japanese, and it makes sense that sometime during the main course you think that maybe you didn't notice and actually flew east without buying a ticket.

9,000 km, three steps, so let's get started.

You have arrived home.

Umai

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There are Japanese apartments that are designed much more mysteriously, but there is no such food in their kitchen

Alex Abramov's house is exactly that, without confusion and without vague wording.

She gets up in it in the morning, goes out for a rare cigarette break on the small balcony that smells of the sea, thinks a lot in it (about food, obviously, but also about trivial things like when the hell they will be able to fix her brand new dishwasher), and cooks in it almost non-stop.

Its large and central space is actually "Umai", its culinary hospitality space, separated from the kitchen by a sort of formidable island of work and bar stools.

A little to the side from there are the guest toilets (which naturally raise complex questions about toilets and socks) and deeper, right in the corner of the eye and no more, the bedroom is hidden.

There are many Japanese apartments that are mysteriously designed, but in their kitchen there is no such food.

You can stop imagining

A soft landing abroad, without leaving the center of Tel Aviv

To the full article

"A little session with myself".

Umai (Photo: Amir Menachem)

Restaurant, home.

Umai (Photo: Amir Menachem)

"I missed a lot - friends and family of course, but also Israeliness. I learned to love Japan and the culture, but I'm not Japanese, so I came back"

Abramov was born in Kamchatka, and immigrated to Israel in 1999.

She graduated from East Asian studies at Tel Aviv University with a strong desire to learn to cook, and the automatic fusion of these two paths led her to Japan.

"I got up, and I just followed the dream," she explained, using the word "simply" as it hadn't been used in a long time.

The same dream lasted for almost two decades, moving between Tokyo and Osaka, with "a bit of Korea" as well as Yokohama, Singapore and Bangkok, Melbourne and at the end of that Hiroshima, here comes this Hyppian alley where, according to documentation that just came to me, a huge garbage can was placed right on the bend, as part of From a viral hoax by the leader of the Ottoman army, Sultan Selim I.

"At the age when I needed to settle down, I had a little yeshiva with myself," she said, "I missed a lot - friends and family, of course, but also Israeliness. I learned to love Japan and the culture, but I'm not Japanese, so I came back."

The original plans have been reset, and that's a good thing.

Umai

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"The food is important, but it is part of the experience I provide to the people who choose to stay at my house"

And so, Abramov returned to Israel in January 2020, riding on waves of nostalgia and hope, and also on the edge of talk about some kind of virus that is making its way from the east of the world to all directions.

Original programs were stopped, and others went their way, in the form of private meals in private homes of private people, while, as I remember, he sat all the people all in their private homes, without the possibility of going out.

That period finally gave birth to "Umai", a kind of restaurant that is not a restaurant, in a house that is very much at home, and in which there are three possible routes - "Keiski", which is a structured tasting meal served to all the diners together, "Izakaya", which simulates a food bar and which can be reached a little Less alert and slightly more independent, as well as real private events, closed and intimate.

Each of these meals is of course based on Abramov's years in Japan, on her rations expertise and on-point nature that jumps between professionalism and a smile.

"Food is important,

"Bringing myself".

Abramov (Photo: Amir Menachem)

Still, what do you eat here?

The tasting menu (400 shekels, 500 including food-matched beers and sake), which changes frequently by its very nature, is strict about non-repetition, in the raw materials and cooking methods.

That is, there will be only one fried dish, for example, or one fish, in the whole meal.

Among its stars you can find sea fish tartare with white miso on smoked watermelon consomme jelly, "custard full of umami" with black Israeli caviar, seared wagyu spoon nigiri, tempura veal almonds with ponzu sauce, seared gyoza with wagyu muscle and dashi cream whipped, and dessert In the form of matcha ice cream and puffs with purin cream.

Wonderful melt-in-your-mouth.

Umai (photo: Walla! system, Yaniv Garnot)

between Tokyo and Jaffa.

Umai (photo: Walla! system, Yaniv Garnot)

And finally, there's also a ban with moza wagyu and katsuobushi mayo, Japanese words that must mean "what the hell are all these bans we've been eating here for the past decade?"

The izakaya, on the other hand, loosens its belt a little and wears slightly looser socks - in the general chill but not in the food that comes from the open kitchen.

Here, too, you can follow a route of five dishes of Abramov's choice (NIS 290), and you can also feel adventurous and choose on your own.

Either way, you can enjoy here an "addictive salted cabbage" with scallops (62 NIS) that provides worthy receipts for its statements, crispy shrimp in panko with tatsuyo sauce (59 NIS) or a warm caprese salad (48 NIS), and also a carpaccio chach Wagyu with truffle caviar (NIS 54) marbled and saturated with red tones, with a wonderful melt-in-your-mouth degree.

Alongside them, there is also an Ontrib Wagyu stew with konjac noodles and potatoes (52 NIS), white rice with Wasio Wagyu and a deep stock (65 NIS) that is poured over it at the table and turns it from bad to nice, and also two impossible-to-skip hits, in the form of pork belly Caramelized by long cooking on sliced ​​cabbage (NIS 72), easily the softest pork belly you've chewed at this moment in the city, and a steamed bun with wagyu moza and katsuobushi mayo (NIS 68), Japanese words that must mean "What the hell are all these bans that we've been allowed to eat here for a decade the last one?".

"This is home."

Umai (Photo: Amir Menachem)

Abramov emerges from the kitchen from time to time to ask and advise, to understand and above all to listen, to reduce stress and enable happiness in life.

Like her, also the few women of the team by her side make something accessible that in other situations could have ended differently.

Both because of them, and because no matter how you spin it, we still end up drinking Japanese beer in our socks, everything mixes into a steaming, delicious Jaffa-Tokyo pot.

"I'm just bringing myself," she clarified later, "I have a very strong Japanese core, right, you could even say I was Japanese, but this is home."

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