Summary of the previous chapters: More than a year ago we happened to come to Cafe Europe. He was kind, he was reasonable, but mostly he was ice. Lots of ice (I put a link to the review). It would be a nice place if you are in the area, but overall unfulfilled potential. A place with a menu that doesn’t know what it wants from itself, and with nothing to write home about (ie 900-1000 words).
Since then many things have happened in Rothschild’s right bank. None of them were as loud (in a good way, yes?) as Jordan Shay’s entrance into the kitchen. Shay, we will remind those of you who do not regard cooking shows as the only justification for maintaining a television set, we met in the first season of MKR, the reality show of Haim Cohen and Ruthie Brodo as part of the “Mamonkot” duo. The duo finished in second place but Shay, who was presented as dominant and a happy, boisterous and slightly dramatic character (a woman? presented as dramatic? make a surprised face) was marked as someone with the potential to “go far”. In the year she was at Cafe Europa, according to the interviews and media items, Shai launched new brunch and lunch menus (which is of interest mainly to people with tenbis) and also, what is more relevant to the event, took care of the evening menu.
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A lot of hype is fine. A lot of salt is not so good. Jordan Shay (Photo: Amir Menachem)
Very pleasant in Cafe Europa. A very successful combination of design, which turns the entire restaurant, including the interior parts, into a kind of garden, plus a non-overwhelming soundtrack that allows you to have a normal conversation and pleasant lighting, which together create a very relaxed atmosphere in the air. But, as the well-known Russian proverb that I made up just now says, “The bear’s belly is not filled with the smells of spring”, so let’s talk about the menu.
To say that the menu of “Cafe Europe” has changed dramatically in the last year would be a wild exaggeration. It is arranged in a different way, priced a little differently (anyone who is surprised that the dish mentioned in the previous review as having excellent VMF remained the same but its price jumped by almost 50%, raise your hand and take some cake). There are dishes that have disappeared, there are new dishes and there is an impressive specials menu, but by and large, it’s pretty similar. But all these comparisons will have to wait because a tuna tartar just landed on the table and it’s really good.
Tuna live in salt water, but we don’t. Cafe Europa (photo PR)
First of all, because it is a tuna tartare completely different from the standard. Someone worked really hard (and really nice) on the cut, and the fish was in tiny cubes mixed with red and green onions, pomelo pecans and celery cut to the same size. Just this simple bite was worth the trip. The combination of the textures between the fish and the vegetables and the way of cutting make every bite a feast on the tongue. And this is just the beginning. Because all this happiness is based on mild yogurt and passion fruit. Now look, the passion story is tricky. And of course not everyone connects, but here it’s simply a connection from another world. The yogurt softens the acidity of the fruit, and together they wrap the bite in a kind of layer of rough delicacy that cannot be explained because the noise of the berries exploding in the mouth covers everything.
The tuna and strawberry carpaccio, which arrived right after each other – and this is the place to say a good word about service, which although here and there disappears just when you need them, but the way they served the dishes, one by one and at a proper pace, was simply great – not only could it not stand up By that standard, he wasn’t even close. In fact, it was closer to a culinary disaster zone than a dish. First of all, because taking a carpaccio and putting half a strawberry on top of the tuna does not make it a “tuna and strawberries carpaccio”. That makes it the hallucination of someone putting half a strawberry on a fish.
But I wish that was the only problem with this dish. Because beyond the hallucination of the unrelated strawberry and mascarpone cheese, the bite of the fish was even more delusional. We all know that tuna is a saltwater fish, but we really don’t need to be reminded of that with a dish at the salinity level of the Indian Ocean.
At least the yard is still fun for God’s sake. Cafe Europa (Photo: Guy Habib)
After we drank, we drank some more, and then we drank some more to pass the saltiness, we continued to the next dish which was called on the menu “white sashimi almost as it is”. It’s a shame that “as it is” turned out to be more “like the tuna”. That is, salty in a way that makes you want to run to the Tami 4 factory and interface with a device for a day or two to convey the feeling of dryness in your mouth. And if that’s not enough, the whole thing sits on a soy sauce that adds, who would have believed, saltiness. Wow, that was tough. Two dishes of the kind that if a waiter asks about, you don’t even try to lie. Unfortunately no one bothered to ask.
At this point we already realized that salvation would not come from the specials menu, so we cut back to the regular menu, and to the “burger tartar”, beef tartar with green leaves in a milk bun and with mustard, tomato and burnt onion aioli. The good news is that we have returned to much better districts. The tartare was great, with not excessive but definitely noticeable seasoning, and the play of textures between it and the leaves and the soft bun did the trick. Don’t get me wrong, there was still an exaggeration here – in this case of the mustard aioli which was a bit excessive and covered everything – but at least it wasn’t salty.
The spinach and ricotta anilotti was another dish that the person who planned it understood what he was doing, but the person who executed it did him a disservice. The spinach and ricotta filling was rare, managed to maintain the texture and flavors of both and the combination with the buttery sauce and the tomato confit was excellent. The only problem was the dough itself, which being called “al dente” personally insults Marco al Dante, the inventor of al dente pasta. It was tough dough that came out of the water much earlier. Another two or three minutes, and this could have been one of the most successful pasta dishes in the region.
Skewering the veal’s tonsils reminded me of forgetting the past and also suffered from a kind of split personality. Here is the experience as it happened in real time: “Wow here are the veal almonds, they look good. Hmmm. What a great taste, it really melts in your mouth and you can feel the taste of the grill on your tongue. It’s great. Wait, what is this aftertaste? Oh! This salty!!”. How can every bite start out great and end up so salty? I have no idea. Maybe that’s how it is in Europe.
It was a successful dish and it remains a successful dish. Grilled calamari skewers. Cafe Europa (Photo: David Meyal)
The squid skewer, which was the most successful dish our last time here, did not disappoint again. It’s not a big portion – 100 grams of squid in total – but the way they survived on the coals did them a great favor and made them larger than life. We can only wish for each and every one of you that one day someone will treat you with the same respect and sensitivity as you treated the 14 squid here. On the other hand, it is hard to ignore the fact that a year ago this was a good and affordable dish (NIS 43 in December 2021) and now it is just a good dish ( 62 NIS).
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For dessert we took lemon cream and crème brûlée. The lemon cream was quite successful, but came in a format that was not easy to eat (a small cup, a large spoon. It’s like a culinary Tetris game). It was delicate, with balanced flavors that did not overpower and benefited from the backing of a successful crumble that gave a fun play of textures. Not surprisingly, the crumble was also the highlight of the brûlée. Its combination with the cream and the pistachio ice cream worked excellently and together closed the corner of the sweet.
A year after Jordan Shay arrived at Cafe Europe, it seems she still has a way to go. There are changes, there are improvements, but right now they are mostly on paper. Bottom line, the performance not only did not improve, in some places it even went backwards. The talk on the networks about a big change for the better turned out to be exaggerated, the kind of story that should be taken with a pinch of salt. And there are plenty of leftovers from the first courses.
2.5 stars. 3 salt commissioners
Tuna tartare 72
Tuna and strawberry carpaccio 76
Sashimi Laban 76
Burger tartar 69
Squid skewer 62
Spinach and ricotta anillotti 72
Veal almonds 78
Brule Vanilla 48
Lemon cream 56