Mommy’s Place – Celebrating Dad’s Birthday

We (mom, Barak and I) wanted to make a spacial surprise for dad’s birthday. We know that he’s not the kind of person to enjoy dinner in a fancy restaurant so we decided to make reservations to the most authentic Philippine karaoke bar / restaurant in Israel – Mommy’s place.

It is located at Newe Shaanan. For us it’s one of few ethnic neighborhoods (China town meets Sudan town). It’s a great place to visit, it has it’s unique hassle and character, you can probably find your stolen bike there as well. Last time we went there we ate in a small Ethiopian place and while going back to the car with our stomachs full, we came across Mommy’s. We promised to get back there soon but it took about 8 months, and dad’s birthday was the perfect occasion. (Sorry girls, I know I promised you all to go there, but it would have been too weird having my friends in dad’s birthday so we invited his friends instead.. We’ll go there next time!). Upon arriving the place we had to get permission to enter as this place is highly secured. After waiting outside for couple of minutes we were led inside.

I have made reservation for 18 people on a Friday night, but I was was warned it will be very crowded. Mommy was there and got kinda stingy with letting us use tables and floor space even though we had the reservation and we came early. She would only agree to assign us tables according to the number of people that has arrived already. We had quite a battle there trying to arrange a decent corner for our group but I was the only one concerned with this issue. Dad was very surprised meeting his friends there, I think he was very excited.

The menu we were given was priced at 35-70 nis for a main course and every description of a dish had a small picture of it. I ordered few collective dishes that everyone tried. Unfortunately the Adobo dish – the only Philippians dish wasn’t available so it was more Thai dishes I guess.

Larb: minced pork with spicy lime dressing. I liked it but Barak said it tasked like a Tuna salad. I don’t like tuna salad so I guess he just said it because of the sourness.

Pad Ka Prow: Beef with Chily and Basil. This really didn’t look like the pic, it was supposed to come with rice and egg but it didn’t. The beef was kinda chewy.

Yam Mu Krob: Fried pork with lemon juice, onion and chilly. This was one of my favorites. It was a crunchy and very spicy salad.

Fried pork: mostly fatty pub food.

Thai papaya salad: we asked for this dish about 5 times, luckily only 2 arrived, it was spicy and simple.

Fried tofu, I liked it as a snack.

Fried squid

Poh Taek soup: It was actually a Tom Yam soup with tomatoes and sea food. Nice broth.

Tom Kha Gai: Chicken, mushrooms, lemongrass, ginger and coconut milk. The soup itself is nice but I didn’t like the bits of chicken inside which were tasteless.

Fried Fish. I have no idea what fish it was, it was pretty big one. nice tender white meat.

Pad-Thai

Pla Sam Ros: Crispy fish topped with sweet and spicy tamarind chilly, pineapple green peas and tomatoes. This was the description in the menu. What we got was the fried fish from before in a sweet and sour spicy sauce.

Lad Na: Stir-fried fresh noodles topped with gravy shrimps and squid, this was pretty good, maybe a little too salty.

Pork spare ribs with garlic and pepper Thai style. It was actually with very little meat on the bone and it was breaded and deep fried.

To sum up the food experience, you can’t say it was a constant level cooking or that we actually got whatever the menu described. It’s obviouse the kitchen is secondery to the Kareoke bar and food is made to accompany drinks, mostly fried stuff.

Dror brought some fancy bottles of wine that we opened, they were all excellent. Thanks Dror!

The main experience was the unique atmosphere of the place. The music at the beginning was 90’s pop classics (Fun!) that changed to the karaoke theme pretty fast. There were two singers that pretty much took over the mic and sang in English, Thai, Japanese and unrecognized languages. The crowd was cheering, clapping and dancing. We got the karaoke menu and it was huge, never seen before such a diversity of 79 (!) song pages (including T-pain and Rihana)! Barak was very excited and performed two songs. The Philippine girls loved him! We had a great time, you can enjoy some of the pictures we took:

For more pics and bigger sizes you can check out this link:

So this was a very big success overall, everyone had a great time, especially dad! Keep in mind when going there that reservations are doubtful even when confirmed ahead of time, just arrive pretty early if it’s a weekend night. Also they don’t except credit cards. The owner Yossi was very welcoming and invited us to come to an opening event of his second restaurant in Nataniya.

I suggest when coming having a walk in the neighborhood and don’t forget to go to one of the Chinese market stores, you’ll find a huge verity of Asian products, can’t all be found in other places. A big tip is going to the Dragon store to buy the Dragon soft tofu. Very good tofu!!

Happy Birthday Dad!