Thursday, May 31, 2012

Food porn: all things that are good

The city offers too many temptations.
I try to resist but I really love these good times out and about with friends and food.
This is another chapter in my diary, hope you like it.


goulash on rice

A hot plate of goulash stew over white rice. I was really sick  that day and had very little ability to taste. The only thing I really recall is that I felt there wasn't enough meat.
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deep fried cauliflower

A lovely plate of deep fried cauliflower. I actuallyate a pretty good steak afterwards but this was the dish to remember. The dip was an aioli based on pickled lemons. A real delight.
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pepperoni pizza

Just a pepperoni pizza from Domino's, simple and delicious. The pepperoni was spicy and crispy, there was lots and lots of cheese on the pizza and it wasn't dry (nor too wet with sauce).

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kebabs

This is from one of the controversial places in the area. They're too cheap to be real, but there are plenty of disadvantages. The place operates like so: You choose whatever meat you wish and pay for it. You take the raw skewers and go to the BBQ area where you give your food to a person that prepares it for you.
In the meanwhile you can go and buy fries, hummus, a jar of homemade spicy pickles, a variety of breads (the most popular is laffa), and some other stuff. Some of the sauces are free and there's a huge container of salad that is free. The place is minimally designed - like you would imagine a warehouse. It's not really clean (but the dishes are) and no one bothers to be nice. This is quite an experience.

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stir fried beef with eggplants

Stir fried beef with eggplants in a sweet and spicy sauce over white rice with egg drops. It was pretty good.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Grilled Cheese Sandwich w. Mushrooms and Sriracha

Yesterday I fancied some mushrooms.
I'm not sure how does one get that specific craving, but on my way home back from work I stopped for that purpose only. 
I bought a basket of champignon mushrooms and continued my way home - thinking about what to prepare.


bread & sriracha


Making grilled cheese sandwiches was a sudden decision, influenced by a smell in the building as I made my way up the stairs. I suddenly wanted cheese, grilled cheese, stringy and crispy and fun.
Since I was already set on cooking with musrhooms - I chose to use sriracha alone. The cheese and the smoky spicy sauce combined with mushrooms are enough flavors for one simple sandwich.


gilboa cheese


Cooks often ignore the stipes and use only the caps. I like to use the whole mushroom, but this time I had to save space due to the toasters limitations so I just ate the stipes and some whole mushrooms too while I was at it. I'm not sure what it is about the taste of fresh mushrooms, but I really love it, the earthiness, the nutty flavors, the meat like texture.


sriracha, cheese, mushrooms, on white bread


Now all I had to do was squeezing the bread together gently with my hand into a sandwich form, just applying some pressure to make a sandwich form.
The moistness of the mushrooms and sauce started to show on the bread.
On to the toaster.


ready for the pressure toaster


The above mentioned moistness and the actual fluids from within the mushrooms caramelized inside the toaster, creating a lovely golden \ rusty color and a crunchy bite.
I allowed my creation to cool down for a bit - inside the shut down toaster, thus it was still how but not as humid as it would be on a cold plate. 


lovely grilled cheese sandwich


While everything was cooling down I prepared a cold glass of club soda.
I also ate all the mushrooms that were left. 
The grilled cheese was awesome. A great thing about sriracha is that becomes sweet after it's been heated, thus making it spicy, sweet, smoky, this made the whole meal taste like wonderfulness in my mouth.


Grilled Cheese Sandwich w. Mushrooms and Sriracha


Several hour later I got a bit hungry again.
Being fresh out of mushrooms I went trough the fridge looking for something that I could turn into a quick snack. I found a jar of homemade chimichurri that my girlfriend's mom gave me on the weekend.
Turned out great :)


homemade chimichurri

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

This monkey's gone to heaven

Imagine there's a mediocre place near your house, it serves mediocre food but the price is right and they even have good days on which the food is great. This imaginary place serves humus, shawarma, skewered meat and other staples of the Arab cuisine.

Now imagine that this made up place is closed for renovation. They splash some paint around, move the furniture, cover the floor with old newspaper. A sign on the see through glass door says it'll be open in no time.

They never come back tough. The place is closed, the work just ceased one day. Nothing moves inside, no one, no sign of live. The place is abandoned.

This happened to me. This place is real to me.
The place was always packed, there was no sign of anything going wrong.
Was this my fault? Did I not deserve a place near my home that serves a variety of food that I like?

This is in loving memory of Sayid's Original Hummus of Akko (the Tel-Aviv branch).

falafel and fries
Superb falafel balls with fries and some ketchup


fresh salad
Fresh salad: cucumber, tomato, parsley, all finely chopped and served with lemon juice


humus & tahini
A lovely plate of humus, with soft chickpeas in the middle, covered with olive oil and tahini

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