Bay Pan, Tel Aviv/Bai Pan
The worst Chinese meal I ever
had was, of course, in Beijing.
It had all the clichés, many of the conventions, and an almost complete realization of prejudices - on both sides of course.
It was, as usual in the world of flight attendants, a classic "Left and Left Restaurant" (left when leaving the hotel, left on the first street, and you arrive), but unlike its friends around the world, the food was the kind that is remembered, negatively, to this day.
As expected, the local team underestimated our ability to handle the original, and our team underestimated the ambition to serve something that wasn't Chinese-Western fast food.
The result, which also included a torturous masquerade of menus in several versions and a double-digit number of local language jokes that were very funny it turns out, was dismal, and mostly inedible.
For all the columns of "Eating on the go"
the best Chinese meal I ever ate
was, of course, at the "Yellow Chinese" restaurant.
Yes, yellow.
It was an Eighties restaurant with only a slight suspicion of copying the red Tel Aviv mythology, located, of course, in a gas station on the outskirts of Ramla.
The flavors were strong, the sauce was creamy, and the ice cream was fried.
The seasoning, I suspect, now consists mostly of nostalgia and taste-enhancing memories.
It likely wouldn't have survived the test of time.
Between these, the bad and the good, the middle is always needed.
And how much he was missing here.
Winter heater.
Bai Pan/Walla! system, will generate profits
The relatively new Bai Pan aims to be exactly that middle ground.
Chinese, but "adapted" to globalization and the West and Israel.
An Asian who directs her range of tastes to the East, but remembers well the great eateries of New York.
Something that is neither shopping malls nor a riot of colors, and at the same time knows how to jump into take-away boxes and knows how to get hot, and get hot.
The first branch - we are talking here about a network, obviously, based on franchisees - opened in midtown Tel Aviv exactly three days before the current hell broke into our lives, and is now trying to establish itself in the shadow of what is a more chaotic culinary reality than usual even in our places.
The second branch, it is promised, will arrive in a relatively short time in Kiryat Ono, which is the new Tel Aviv of chains and branches and franchisees, it seems.
Eaters go
Chaimiko's Prixa: In one rare moment of silence, everything came together
To the full article
What's wrong, really?
Bai Pan/Walla! system, will generate profits
The desire for delivery of Chinese food, the same one that has not been met in Tel Aviv and its surroundings for years, requires expansion.
It is likely to be a ceiling soon
The menu is not huge, and you won't find a bright white board here with dish numbers that make it easier for everyone involved.
Instead, there is a transparent display case behind which are pots and pans, and staff who are happy to load.
The majority here is based on stews, which in turn are based on side dishes, which in turn benefit from salads.
That is, a complete meal in the format of getting off the office and sitting in a (very pleasant) place or to-go that works great with a microwave, office or home.
The dishes themselves change daily, leaving only a few anchors for repeated and continuous performances, and succeed in diversifying and challenging the regulars (for now, mainly employees of the offices above and the Kirya opposite, with the Sibus and Ten Bis cards and their boyfriends).
The opening hours, naturally for the starting point and the general situation, wrap around lunch (actually, there is only business here, at a uniform and relatively fun price of 64 shekels) and stop when the food runs out.
The desire for delivery of Chinese food, the same one that has not been met in Tel Aviv and its surroundings for years, requires expansion.
It is likely to be a ceiling soon.
Businesses that build themselves.
In Bai Pan/David Sassoon
A random midweek pop-up featured behind the glass Kung Pao Chicken (stir-fried chicken with colorful and hot peppers, scallions, ginger and peanuts), General Tzu (crispy-coated chicken stir-fried with scallions, garlic, ginger and toasted sesame), sweet and sour chicken, lemon chicken and schnitzels.
Next to them, there were also more interesting exits in the form of eggplant tofu mafu (tofu coated and sautéed in a vegan sauce), beef meatballs in coconut-ginger cream, Szechuan beef (rib stew with potatoes and leeks) as well as soup with dumplings filled with vegetarian mushrooms or chicken.
As part of the deal, they get side dishes such as white rice or the necessary stir-fry, stir-fry vegetables, chow mein noodles, roasted sweet potatoes in a glaze and also small potatoes ("there is no choice", we were told, "we are in Israel after all") with cilantro and ginger R.
An egg roll, sour-spicy soup and a soft drink will add NIS 8, and small plates of fresh salads arrive without words.
a surprise.
Bai Pan's beef patties/Walla system!, Yaniv Granot
The food, to generalize even before going into details, is pleasing.
He is not a "real" Chinese (and as mentioned, not sure that is the worst thing that can be said about food) nor is he a New Yorker, and knows how to position himself well exactly where we have positioned ourselves, as a country and as gluttons, without embarrassing and without making fun, and much more than that.
The three base dishes - Kung Pao Chicken, General Tzu and Sweet and Sour Chicken - avoided getting carried away with the overly sweet common denominator and were all that the rice underneath required.
The chicken pieces were wrapped, the sauce oozed and that happy eating, which is fork and knife at first and then a spoon, did happen.
The soup was even more successful, with a fun winter stock, quite a few greens and flavorings (bak choy, cilantro, green onion, sprouts, reddish sesame sauce and scallion and a kicking nut crunch) and big, tasty dumplings that succeeded well in their winter improvement mission.
Deep and good.
Bai Pan's Szechuan cattle/Walla! system, will generate profits
Three potential hits were revealed shortly thereafter as dishes that should increase demand for extended hours and delivery service.
The beef meatballs, although probably not very authentic to this cuisine, were excellent, and enjoyed an unapologetic ginger, a spicy flavor, and a coconut milk sauce that is less interested in sweetening excessively, and more in going hand in hand.
Is it Chinese, you wonder.
Is it important, you reply while eliminating.
The Szechuan beef stew was good and deep, the unphotogenic but delicious kind of brown.
The meat was very tender, the potatoes, in medium wedges, still had a presence, and the sauce came together.
them to each other, then to the sauce.
A particularly happy surprise came from the tofu side - a spicy dish at the edges of a thick sauce, tofu that didn't know it was such, very soft eggplants and a general feeling of veganism that is able to give a pat.
Veganism that gives pate.
Bai Pan's tofu/Walla! system will generate profits
The group of partners behind Bay Pan also owns no less than 16 branches of the Bleeker Bakery chain and two branches of "Company", an emerging chain that focuses on homemade food.
These arms and these quantities may overwhelm some concerns of over-deployment, but in the end they mostly overwhelm rather impressive management capabilities, and a worldview that doesn't drown you in megalomaniacal statements, but in everyday receipts.
Bai Pan is there, completely there.
The chef is Israeli but lived and worked in China for 15 years.
The attitude is encouraging and generous, and advocates that you leave the map with seven (want a main that is "half-and-half", for example? You got it).
And the food itself is fresh, cooked now and knows where you came from, what you remember eating there (in Beijing) or there (New York) or even there (Ramela), and what exactly you want right now.
It.
exactly that.
Pan Bay, Menachem Begin 144, Midtown Complex, Tel Aviv, 03-6333315
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