It is doubtful if there is such a bleak case of unrealized potential in Tel Aviv as the station complex. An area so wasted that we almost forgot about its existence (or rather: suppressed it). The absolute proof that when you try to forcefully engineer a recreation area it doesn’t work. And the “give it time, eventually it will catch on” section is nothing. Fact.
Twenty years after it was opened to the public, the station complex feels like a piece of real estate in dire but stable condition. In the summer, on weekends, when the crowds rush towards the sea, it can look like a functioning place. Most of the time, the situation is much less attractive. A favorite location for Bat Mitzvah photography, a collection of shops that He will not particularly come to them out of nowhere, and a gloomy and old atmosphere that drains you of the joy of life. A place that on paper has everything, but in reality has almost nothing.
>> Champions League: The 22 best restaurants in Tel Aviv
>> Eat with fun: the 21 best casual restaurants in Tel Aviv
For more than a decade, despite the difficult field conditions, Vicky Christina has managed to thrive in the entertainment desert of the station complex. And as soon as you manage to survive the navigation journey and reach it, you also remember exactly why. It’s true that it’s “winter” now, but that doesn’t stop the outdoor bar from being one of the nicest places we’ve met. On the 300 days of the year when flip flops and shorts match the weather, it’s totally a place to come to after work like a Spanish bar Tapas. arrive in the evening, eat, drink and not want to go home.
The enthusiasm cooled a bit when the menu arrived. It’s not that he was bad, just that he seemed a bit like a genetic accident. It’s as if someone went to all the restaurants in Tel Aviv and collected random dishes that repeated themselves on the assumption that “this is what’s popular with the young people”, then mixed in some tapas, steak, whole fish and of course meat by weight, because why not (because you don’t order meat for NIS 550 per kilo in a restaurant where there is a bowl of sum in the middle of the table, that’s why not).
But leave it at that, because here comes the food. We started with leeks with Tulum cheese, za’atar and pistachios and were pleasantly surprised. The cheese was as aggressive as a Bloomfield cop and attacked with all its might, but the leeks and their sweetness did a great job of balancing all that energy, and together created a wonderfully successful combination. The pistachios added the crunch dimension that only made everything more successful. The lamb carpaccio dish, unfortunately, did not manage to go the same way. I mean maybe she tried, but drowned in balsamic vinegar along the way. And don’t say “oops, we spilled a little too much vinegar”. We’re talking amounts of vinegar that feel like you’ve shoved your tongue into caustic soda (don’t try this at home). It had some cute chips on it that gave a crunch, but they couldn’t pass the balsamic barrier either.
We didn’t ask for compensation for the carpaccio incidents but we got it in the form of shrimp Valencia. It’s not a cheap dish (make up your mind, if it’s tapas then NIS 82 is a lot, if it’s a dish then five shrimp is really little) but it’s really successful. At first glance it’s a bit disappointing, because it looks like bread placed on something indistinct, but under the slices of bread were hidden chubby shrimps that were made just right and all this sat on a mighty tomato sauce, a type of diablo not very spicy, but very, very tasty. Even the bread, which at first you don’t understand how it is connected, turned out to be just the thing we needed to mop up the sauce to the end.
The corn and asparagus dish was a direct continuation of the delight. Soft and caressing polenta cream that wraps the mouth cavity on one side, corn kernels and roasted asparagus pieces give the crunch on the other side. Brown butter on everything in the role of the handcuff that connects everything. Richness and happiness that land on you in a game of flavors and textures with each bite only making the previous one more successful. The hamburger (or rather, hamburgerron) totally continued the trend. First of all because in terms of size it is perfect for a food bar. Two and a half bites under pressure. But beyond that he was simply good and at a great price. Seasoned meat, cheddar on top, and all in a soft and pleasant bun. It’s not a substitute for dinner, but a totally legitimate tapas dish. The dish of baked beets was also successful. I mean relatively, because in the end it’s beets in the oven, but the combination between the vegetables and Tulum cheese cream and Brie cheese was exactly what they needed to turn just beets into a dish.
But just then, just as we were already starting to think that there was a good part here, the Patatas Bravas arrived and brought us back to reality with a thud. Which is amazing because it wasn’t even a matter of taste. Not that we had any way of knowing, because we got something that was closer to coal than potatoes. A dish that is not clear how someone saw it on the tape and thought it was legitimate to take it out to guests.
>> Last week we ate at the Tel Aviv pop-up of Mahaniuda. So much wow
>> MENA looks like a chef restaurant with potential. But it is a deceptive appearance
The good news is that the waitress showed much better receptiveness than the kitchen, recognized that we had not touched the dish and why, and made sure to remove it from the bill. The bad news is that the calamari we had instead were an equally awful dish. Although they looked less bad, they suffered from no less big problems. For example the fact that the calamari were so rubbery that Ball Tires (if you recognized the reference, you old people who grew up in Sharon) called to ask if it wasn’t theirs by mistake. Or unreasonable amounts of crushed Persian lemon spice, which took over the other flavors and pretty much made them disappear. Or a plate that managed to be more messy and senseless than a law proposal by a Knesset member looking for likes. Only this time when the waitress came we said everything was fine. The thought of another substitute dish like this was great for us to the point of moving straight to desserts. Am; Lek: It didn’t improve matters.
The basic idea was to try to take the simple desserts that would be impossible to screw up. We gave up sophistication and went for the basics of a churros dish and an ice cream dish. Well, it turns out that “can’t” is a relative term. The churros were terrible. They felt industrial and tasteless. The sauces that came with them were even more synthetic and the whole event just left an unpleasant aftertaste. We would have been happy to console ourselves with ice cream but it had so many ice cubes that we didn’t even understand if it was ice cream or sorbet.
Vicky Christina is an excellent example of the “lonely success paradox” (which I just made up), which states that any place that succeeds in a place where there are no other places – must necessarily be mediocre. Because if he was bad he would be closed, and if he was good, he would bring more people and more places would open around him. Maybe in the summer, when it’s nice to sit outside, you can forgive the mistakes and enjoy the surrounding atmosphere or at least humbly accept the culinary mediocrity for the vibe. If you come specifically to eat, it might be worth continuing to drive and look for somewhere else.
★★☆ 2.5 stars
Vicky Christina, station complex 17b, 03-7367272 (Closed: Sunday to Tuesday)
Leek fingers 62
Lamb carpaccio 74
Shrimp Valencia 82
Corn and asparagus 48
Mini hamburger 29
Colorful slakim 67
Calamari 79
Churros 48
Ice cream 44