Last update - 00:00 07/12/2006
Dining Out / Italian, courtesy of mom and pop
By Daniel Rogov
Intimate, with a small bar, a wood floor, late 1950s-style wallpaper and a few Renaissance-style oil paintings, the recently opened Mel and Michelle indeed gives the appearance of a true Italian trattoria. The bric-a-brac, attractive retro serving pieces and the warm and responsive service add to the feeling that this might be a family-owned eatery in Florence or Rome, with papa at the stove and mama serving the tables. In this case, papa is the young chef Nir Wayman, formerly of Bellini and Barbaresco, and mama is a very pleasant young waitress.
Dinner opened with simple but pleasant country-style breads served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. As an appetizer, my companion opted for the vegetarian minestrone soup. When well made, this should be the king of vegetable soups, full of white beans, pasta, onion, garlic, herbs, tomatoes and a large variety of vegetables, and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. What we received is probably best described as pleasant but not exciting, and for some reason lacked any sign of beans and cheese. I chose the antipasti platter as a first course. It appeared on a three-tiered server. On the top were two kinds of cheese - a rich and satisfying blue gorgonzola and a white goat's milk cheese, which was at its best when dipped into olive oil - and several slices of meat - a fine, thin Proscuitto ham and several slices of pancetta, the bacon-like dish Italians so adore. On the middle and bottom tiers were a variety of vegetables, including oven-baked zucchini, fennel, red peppers and sweet potatoes, and cauliflower florets in a pleasantly sweet sauce. Overall, this was good and satisfying antipasti.
In lieu of a formal main course, my companion opted to continue with two more first courses. The first was gnocchi alla Romana. Unlike the potato gnocchi served in many places, these Rome-style gnocchi are made with farina. The three large gnocchi were held together with egg, seasoned with salt and pepper, baked and then topped with Parmesan cheese and placed under a hot grill for a few seconds. Served with a cream sauce containing slices of large champignon mushrooms, the gnocchi were excellent. The sage-flavored sauce was good, but would have been better had the cream been cut with a bit of butter.
My companion tried the calamari alla plancha as well. Although the calamari were a bit rubbery and should have been grilled a bit longer, the accompanying tabbouleh was especially good. It was just dry enough and contained dried currants, finely chopped almonds and a few bits of celery.
I ordered veal escalopes, which were perfectly thin and topped with pancetta, like in a classic saltimbocca. Unlike a saltimbocca, the veal had not been folded into rolls, but laid out flat on the plate and topped with melted mozzarella cheese. Served with a well-made, just thick enough sauce of berries, sage and red wine, the dish was a treat. The accompanying home fries were somewhat disappointing: Some of the potatoes had been cooked through, while others were still a bit too hard.
For dessert we shared a tiramisu, which was especially good. The marscapone cheese had been sprinkled generously with cocoa powder, and the cake was a good match for the strong espressos with which we closed our meal.
The service was good, the atmosphere was very pleasant and the dishes were overall rewarding. It would be nice, though, to find a more complete, well-rounded wine list. For us this was not a problem, as we had brought a bottle from home. Our food bill for two came to a quite reasonable NIS 234. This is a good option for an intimate meal.
Mel and Michelle: 155 Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv. Open daily 7 P.M.-midnight. Tel (03) 529-3232.
Faulty breakfast
Tel Aviv's recently opened Benedict is based on the concept at several Las Vegas and Texas restaurants of specializing in breakfast 24 hours a day.
I opened with what was described as Texan-style steak and eggs. When served in Texas, the steak is almost invariably a fine sirloin, topped with fried eggs and no sauce - the primary seasonings should be salt and pepper. Here the meat was two medallions of beef fillet, which was not of the highest quality, set "in reverse" on the eggs, and the plate was ladled rather heavily with a thin sauce of beef stock and red wine. The combination was not very exciting. I received a side of French fries, which were acceptable but reminded me too much of those that come from large plastic bags in the freezer.
My companion ordered the eggs royale, a sort of eggs Benedict for people who do not eat ham. Here it was two slices of smoked salmon set on toasted brioche and topped with poached eggs, and nearly flooded with a Hollandaise sauce. The dish was disappointing: The traditional English muffin would have suited it better than the brioche did, and the thin Hollandaise lacked the richness that should typify this classic French sauce. The French toast we tried also was made from slices of brioche. In this case the dish disappointed, because the bread had not absorbed enough of the seasoned egg and milk mixture, and had not been fried long enough. Instead of being succulent, the dish was dry and lacking in flavor. Our closing espresso was good, but the orange juice with which we opened had not been squeezed freshly.
Based on the dishes we sampled, the bill for three will come to NIS 156. The concept is good and the place is spacious and pleasant, but the execution is not nearly professional enough. The prices resemble those of breakfasts at most places, and the breakfasts themselves, despite the effort to diversify, have too many faults. If and when they decide clients deserve freshly squeezed juice and better sauces, I will consider returning.
Benedict: 171 Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv. Open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Tel.: (03) 544-0345.