Exactly two hours before the official opening of the doors, and only one slit - barely wide enough to let in a curious and flexible food journalist, just narrow enough to prevent passers-by from having similar thoughts - indicates what is currently happening inside "Local Burger" in Tel Aviv.
For all the columns of "Going Eaters"
the lighting is even more dimmed than usual, the walls shout everything that has been written about them in the last year and a half, and good noises from the back kitchen tell the rest.
Something delicious is happening here, underground enough to arouse interest, mysterious enough to keep the threshold of stimulation.
All that's left now is to wait.
Ten minutes later - 600 seconds in real time, much more towards 60,000 in feeling - Alon Peled and Aviv Cohen emerge from the depths.
They carry loaded brown cardboard boxes, place them on the table in front of me like Chekhov's Edible Gun, sit down and smile generously (and cruelly).
High-tech wings.
Local Kinneret
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This is a professional place that makes foreign street food with the same level of seriousness that we usually look for here right after a particularly hard landing from that foreign country
A year and a half after the official opening of "Lokal" on Ahad Ha'am Street (and quite a few months of indoor activity before that), its urban characterization has been firmly established among its diners - a professional place that makes foreign street food with the same level of seriousness that we usually look for here Right after a particularly hard landing from that foreign country.
The small menu, however - a few individual versions of fried chicken and smash burger, manifested mainly in the toppings and the casing - tickled from the beginning to the air demanding but troublesome questions about "what else", "what's next", and especially "when already".
Peled and Cohen, a couple that is both two complete parts in themselves and a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, heard everything and knew everything and understood everything.
The result was a successful entry into AKA44 in Nachalat Binyamin (although now only Cohen remains there), a continuous improvement of the local anchor himself and also an intriguing pop-up with "Marindo", which is also a reason to come during these off-hours,
Eliminates doubts.
Local Kinneret (photo: Anatoli Michaelou)
21 days, run.
Local Kinneret (photo: Anatoli Michaelou)
The project, under the informative branding "Local Kinneret", is expected to run during the next three weeks in the home port of the meat chain in Ein Gav.
A little niche, true, and very well timed, so I approached it with the skepticism reserved for pop-ups, and with the assumption that the section would be skipped, because it is better to give a stage to more permanent things, which do not require panic.
All these basic assumptions disappeared, as one might assume, a few seconds after glancing at the menu.
The rest were made, as can be assumed with even greater certainty, by the same gun boxes.
And now, for the third act.
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The specialty at the center.
Local Kinneret (photo: Anatoli Michaelou)
"For us, it's like a huge pantry, a place that allows us to dream something, a dish or a cut or whatever, and fulfill this meaty fantasy for us without any problems"
"We drove north to Marindo, we saw what was going on there, we talked to them and realized that it was actually like a huge pantry," the two said, "a kind of place that allows us to dream something, a dish or a cut or whatever, and fulfill this meaty fantasy without Boll".
This means, in practice, "Minute Denver lamb", based on the specialty of the chain's crops (NIS 78 including fries), a dish of boneless wings, fried and topped with spicy buffalo sauce (NIS 38 for three units), a sandwich with the same wings, with coleslaw , cabbage and green onion (62 NIS, including fries) and also a short rib sandwich on the bone, with barbecue sauce and smoked strawberries (89 NIS, including fries).
Apart from these, there will also be spicy lamb smash (with Arisa aioli, red onion and whole burnt hot pepper, NIS 59, including chips), "American smash" (with lamb bacon and caramelized onions, NIS 69, including chips), "Smash Local" that will migrate north as it is and also side dishes of classic fries, "Tibraini fries" seasoned with dry mint and garlic (homage to the childhood trips of both of them on the boardwalk of Tiberias, where fries served as part of a fish dish absorbed their flavors , and also the garlic-lemon aromas) and fried corn ribs.
Right next to the hamburger
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Only in cartoons.
Local Kinneret
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After that, I approached with work accident insurance to pick up the excess baggage which is a "short rib sandwich".
Technically accurate definition, though also the understatement of 2023
Spicy Lamb Smash was the first to win this challenging staring contest.
My personal fear of spiciness led to one minor bite, but the smoky flavors and the almost automatic kick they give the burger will leave objections, even though the big pepper was removed, and what was left behind was mostly an aftertaste of spiciness.
Many pile lamb bacon on a hamburger, few achieve such a result.
After that, I approached with work accident insurance to pick up the excess baggage which is a "short rib sandwich".
Technically accurate definition, although also the understatement of 2023 so far, because such things are only seen in cartoons - two sides of a soft bun, and in the middle a steak weighing 400 grams, with the bone as guaranteed.
The instructions are to pull out and bite, and this test - after a light and quick turn of the fleshy stake - successfully launches the attack.
At first glance it looks like a to match, an overkill of butchers and food people who have spent too much time over the fumes of the fermentation jar.
It will be dry, you lower expectations.
It's going to be hard, you're arrogant.
It'll be chewy like forever, you're fired.
The first bite is enough to bring proportions to all your assumptions.
How much fun, how much dedication, how delicious.
is it a hamburger
is it a steak
Does it matter?
Then, when no one is looking, you even take the bone and do things with it that are just a little off limits.
That's not why they put her there, obviously, but at this point there's no point in giving up any sensual pleasure.
Is this shawarma?
Is it gyros?
What does it matter with such a taste and such a price
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Shards of wow.
Local Kinneret (photo: Anatoli Michaelou)
to recommend, implore, beg.
Local Kinneret (photo: Anatoli Michaelou)
"This is a dish that is impossible to produce and serve in the reality of a restaurant, the amount of work behind it is pretty crazy"
The wings were saved for last, considering exactly the same skepticism that was reserved for the other dishes.
Like them, she too was blown up into the air by pieces of wow.
"This is a dish that is impossible to produce and serve in the reality of a restaurant," it was explained to me, "the amount of work behind it, cutting all the bones and leaving only the wing meat - is pretty crazy."
On this basis, and assuming that the same work will not be repeated and that only a miracle will bring these wings to Tel Aviv permanently, all that remains is to recommend, implore, almost beg - go, because there are no such things.
Not in the worn and tired sense of the phrase, but in its exact literal meaning.
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Peled and Cohen's preparation rounds in the north led them more than once to the gates of local successes, and left them almost always a little confused, having trouble deciphering what exactly is happening around them, and how the daily culinary reality in the region is conducted.
The latter, who grew up not far from there, knows how to explain that "the people here will start the car and not be afraid of the distance if there is something worth enough. I remember mine was really lacking then, and that every small place that opened we would come to check it out."
This pop-up, of course, will not completely solve this longing, and therefore does not insist on bringing *Tel Aviv* there either, but rather to have a fair playdate between two good brands.
As such, it will leave behind a taste of much more before the calendar turns over February with a new leaf.
They know that, and they also know that I'm going to ask them now, transparently and clearly, what of all this will remain on the Local menu.
Instead of answering, they look at each other, look back and smile again.
The gun has again been put down, the fourth act can begin.
"Local Kinneret", Sunday-Thursday from 13:00 to 21:00, Friday and Saturday as specials within the restaurant menu, from January 29 to February 18, "Marindo" Ein Gev (opposite the entrance to the kibbutz), 04-6658555
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