NG restaurant hosted a special meal for meat lovers. The definition does fit me so we went four friends to explore our meat eating limits. It felt like old days feast and it was very exciting and fun. The company was great, the meat was red and the wine kept filling our glasses. We were lucky to have a very talented photographer with us, Nimrod Genisher, which took fabulous pictures. I borrowed some for this post but you can see his entire album from this night here. Make sure to also check his website. Thank you for your lovely pics!
I’m happy to see so many meat lovers in an era when so many become vegans in Israel. The ambiance was warm and cheerful, crowded but happy.
Wine:
Abaya Winery brought us the wine: Abaya Le Rouge and Moon-A. Both blends of Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Sirah. Both 2010. They resembled one another and were young and fresh wines, light and easy to drink. I would prefer heavier and fuller wine to accompany the main courses.
Teasers:
The bread was crusty, soft inside and fresh, I tried to avoid this teaser before the “real” food comes to our table.
Roasted eggplant with tomato salsa, goat cheese and mint cilantro pesto. The pesto sauce was excellent, I had the urge to keep it aside to eat with the meat but my plan didn’t come through.
Mixed lettuce, arugula, baby greens, sweet potato crunch and parmesan served with the House dip. I think it was a nice salad for a meat dinner, light and green with some texture – the crunchy bits of sweet potato were a nice touch.
NG’s “Pizza”, flatbread with grilled entrecote chopped on top, Sulguni cheese, tomatoes, raisins, shallots, garlic confit, oregano and some fresh chilli.
I like these kind of things with great components on top like garlic confit, it came right out of the oven, but wasn’t seasoned right – the meat was under-salted. I sprinkled some salt and it came to life. Amit said he enjoyed without it just fine.
Carpaccio flowers: fillet of beef, arugula, baby greens and parmesan on balsamic vinegar. One of NG’s flag dishes.
It seemed like the preparation was rushed, they weren’t tightly folded. The squeezed lemon gave it a nice bite.
The winery representative talking about the wine
Some real barbarians engraved their barbarianhood on the table on some other barbarians night at NG’s.
Main courses:
Marinated whole Leg of lamb in fresh IPA beer and smoked maple rosemary aroma
Came with a lot of roasted cauliflower, it was nice, I didn’t sense all these flavors of beer or maple.. I think there could have been more lamb fat left on the meat to give a stronger lamb taste.
Prime Rib, aged and juicy Entrecote on the bone from a selected cow.
My favorite dish of the night. Simply done but good quality meat. I asked for a bone and happily got one. Around the bone the meat was too rare and the fat didn’t melt into the meat and it was a shame, but this is the problem with cooking meat on the bone. Better rare than well done – this is what I think.
Porterhouse, Golan Heights veal, sirloin and fillet on the bone.
This big cut was grilled and then cut to pieces and re-grilled a little bit more. The outcome was unevenly cooked cuts. Some were delicious and some over cooked. But worry not – all was eaten and cleaned from the bone.
Whole piglet marinated in Calvados, honey and apples.
The piglet was the one who bought us all into this meal. Definitely not a commonly found dish in Israel. Did it have an apple in its mouth? Yes, it did. I managed to take a picture of it goes up in flames. It was fun and the roasted apples were a nice match. You can see here some pictures of us playing with the food 🙂
Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes crisps, Swiss chard and green beans with garlic and olive oil.
The side dishes were really nice, but they were shadowed by the main courses. I liked the greens.
Desserts
Chestnut tart – crispy dough, chestnut cream, chocolate ganache and espresso. Sweet and fits the occasion. Thumbs up.
Nothing like filling your mouth with sweet sweet tart after a big meat dinner.
Fruit sorbet
Strawberry tart – crispy dough, vanilla cream and fresh strawberries. We mainly noticed, between the bites, that the strawberry confiture on top was well made.
Affogato – pistachio ice cream with espresso
To sum it up, it was a unique experience and I enjoyed it very much. Foodwise, we had a lot to eat, most of the dishes were simple but to the point.
6 Ehad Ha’am St. Neve Tsedek, Tel-aviv
03-5167888
