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Last update - 00:00 19/06/2008
Dining Out / Where the ordinary meets the confused
By Daniel Rogov
Tags: Daniel Rogov, Tel Aviv 

The interior of Tel Aviv's Zappa is appealing in a plain and uncluttered way, but sitting on the outdoor terrace, with its wood deck, canvas umbrellas, abundant greenery and cool breeze, even on a warm day, was an absolute delight. Unfortunately, that was one of the very few pleasures at this new bistro.

I decided to open my lunch with a serving of beef carpaccio. Nothing is easier than making a fine carpaccio. All one has to do is thinly slice well-chilled raw steak, lightly sprinkle it with a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and top it with coarse salt and Parmesan cheese shavings, and you have one of the world's most popular dishes. In this case, however, the beef was too grainy, so much vinegar had been used that it took one's breath away, and there was far too much coarse salt. To add insult to injury, nobody in the kitchen had bothered to remove the thick stems from the arugula that accompanied the dish.

My companion ordered pumpkin soup as an appetizer. The soup was acceptable, but alas it seemed to have been made not with pumpkin, but with summer squash (dalorit), which lacks the thick richness of true pumpkin. The bread that was served with the opening courses was devoid of flavor.
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I ordered what the menu listed as a 250-gram hamburger. To my surprise, what I received was two 125-gram burgers, each set on its own roll. I might have been willing to overlook the excess of bread, but it was more difficult to forgive the fact that both burgers were half-cold when they made it to the table, and even though they were medium-rare as requested, they seemed seriously lacking in richness. On one side of the burger rolls was an aioli sauce that we were told had been flavored with a few drops of coffee. Just why anyone would want to add coffee to this garlic sauce eludes me, but that proved no problem, as the taste of the coffee went fully unnoticed. The only thing that did add some flavor to the burgers was my generous use of mustard. In one of the few happy surprises that awaited, the fried potatoes that accompanied the burgers were quite tasty.

My companion requested a pasta dish as her main course, linguini tossed with butter, garlic, sage and a collection of sauteed green vegetables, including broccoli, leeks, zucchini and peas. Like all of the other dishes, this one came in a very generous portion, and while unexciting in any way, it had the advantage of being filling.

We went on to share a single dessert - three scoops of sorbet. As we waited nearly 20 minutes for that to appear, I reflected on the fact that while there were an abundance of waiters to be seen, none seemed the least bit coordinated with the others and that errors, delays and misunderstandings, not only at our own table but at others, seemed to be the rule rather than the exception. When it came to water, for example, we had to ask three times before it appeared, and after ordering wine, we received glasses of something else. It seems almost picayune to add that three of the items listed on the menu were not available on the day of our visit, and that in general the service was far too slow. Our dessert did finally make its way to our table, but the sorbets (strawberry, mango and lemon-basil) did not improve our mood. Simply stated, the sorbets tasted precisely like those made by several large companies for restaurants all over the country. They were somewhat bland and not at all as fresh as sorbet made on the spot.

The final confusion came with our bill. I did not mind so much that it was impossible for us to understand the printout as I did that one of the waitresses found it equally impossible to explain to us. She did, however, find what she said was an error, went quickly back to the cash register and printed out another version, which also contained obvious errors. Considering that the sum was in the ballpark of what we had anticipated, I did not argue any further, but simply paid the bill. Including one glass of Barkan's Reserve Chardonnay and a plain but appealing Cotes du Rhone red, our bill for two came to NIS 150. The price, like the ambience, is definitely right. All that needs be done now is to improve the quality of the dishes and the service.

Zappa: 1 Daniel Frisch Street (ZOA House), Tel Aviv. Tel. (077) 350-8090. Open Sun.-Thurs. from 12 P.M.-1 A.M.; Fri.-Sat. from 9 A.M.-1 A.M.
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