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Dining Out / A pleasant mass-market meal
By Daniel Rogov

On entering Ramat Hahayal's Segev Express I was immediately reminded that interior designer Yaron Tal and his team have formulated the concepts for some of the most attractive restaurants in the country. With large plate glass windows covered by heavy white drapes, one enters through what seems to be a glass-framed garden hothouse, and once inside stands in a combination of shock and awe at what seems to be more an English country garden than a local restaurant.

With narrow paths lined with white garden benches and real trees, those filled with white fabric leaves, and even a garden fountain set comfortably in the midst of the restaurant, that shock and awe quickly turn into a comfortable smile for here, thoroughly well designed is a restaurant intentionally set out to provide mass-market dining in a remarkably comfortable and eye-appealing setting. Even the waitresses, wearing white trousers and black gardener's aprons seem as ready to tend the plants as they are to serve your table.
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I took my place on one of the banquettes facing the open "garden space" to place my order. I had come at lunch time, so decided to stay with the fixed price business menu and started off my meal with a Caesar salad that arrived in a generous enough portion to have made up my entire meal.

Probably first made by Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant to the United States in his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, the traditional salad that carries his name is made mashing garlic cloves in a wood bowl, adding chopped anchovies to the bowl and rubbing the bowl with those. To the bowl are then added olive oil, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, black pepper and egg yolks and, while drizzling in yet more olive oil, whipping these well until a creamy mayonnaise-type dressing forms. To the bowl are then added a generous quantity of romaine lettuce (best known in Israel as Arab lettuce) and bread croutons that have been fried until crisp in olive oil. The salad is then tossed well and sprinkled with shaved Parmesan cheese and served from its wooden bowl.

The salad I received varied somewhat from this standard, first of all being served in a ceramic rather than a wood bowl, and with not enough sauce tossed with the salad. Instead of cutting the lettuce into manageable bite-sized pieces, whole leaves were served and my palate discerned neither a hint of anchovies nor garlic. All of which was, however, quite forgivable, for at my request additional sauce was brought immediately to the table and with the use of fork and knife the salad became not only easy to eat but remarkably full of flavor, the lettuce every bit as fresh and crisp as it should have been, the croutons crunchy and full of flavor and the sauce quite well made.

The salad was followed by cannelloni, a long filled tube made by rolling a sheet of pasta around a mixture of ground beef. Again served in a more than generous portion, the pasta itself was just soft enough, the filling of well-seasoned meat mixed with pine nuts, raisins and salt and pepper, and, I believe, a bit of cinnamon. The cannelloni was excellent and, although a bit on the salty side, the feta cheese-enriched tomato sauce made a good match, all of which went very nicely with the Cabernet-Shiraz red wine of the Galil Mountain winery that I had ordered.

The truth is that either the salad or the cannelloni would have made a full lunch but being weak, with closing espresso coffee I did not resist going on to dessert, in this case a mahlabi, made unique by being mixed together with a thick vanilla cream and fresh strawberries and on the side, to spoon over, a raspberry-flavored granite. In addition to being both calorie and cholesterol packed, the dessert was delicious.

That this is mass-market food is undeniable, but no one should object to that because the atmosphere, like the service, is a delight, and the dishes here show just enough creativity to make for most pleasant dining. My food bill for lunch came to NIS 112, to which the carafe of wine I ordered added NIS 64. Prices in the evening are about 30% higher.

Chef Moshe Segev is doing a fine job here. For fun and even lightly romantic dining, definitely worth visiting.

Segev Express: 36 Habarzel Street, Ramat Hahayal. Daily midday-11 P.M. Tel: 077-4142025.
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