I was so busy with the exquisite meal at hand and the wonderful champagne was such a suitable company, that I forgot all about our second white wine the Sauvignon Blanc (Morillon) – Zieregg – Manfred Tement Austria Manfred is considered to be amongst the best Sauvignon producers in the world. It is a powerful Sauvignon Blanc, a bit too muscular for my taste especially for the delicate meal we are enjoying , it has a strong yellow color, very long lasting on the palate, fully ripened now (a bit on the oxidized side). Haidu says Zieregg is the “baby” of the tireless Manfred Tement, who is never quite pleased with his wine and constantly in search for new challenges and better achievements in his vineyard and winery, on the hills above Berghausen (in the south east of Austria a few miles from the border with Slovenia).

we continue with our meal https://wine4soul.com/2012/11/24/a-meal-at-catit-restaurant/ ,  and now open the GRUAUD LAROSE 1970 (St. Julien Bordeaux) with a sense of enigmatic anticipation the wine is Just above shoulder in the bottle, a fairly low level that might have allowed extra oxidation to affect the wine. In the meantime as the Sauvignon Blanc (Morillon) – Zieregg is being consumed I stick with the lovely champagne.

We are sitting in Catit Tel-Aviv (since 2006), The restaurant resides in a beautiful period building built by the Jerusalemski family in 1911 and was known as The “Jerusalem’s House” Later it became the first Hotel in Tel-Aviv “The American Hotel” till the early 1950’s. It was restored to its glory to house the present restaurant, the exterior of the building complements the content of the indoors

In the Hebrew Midrash, (which is the interpretation of biblical stories beyond their semantic meaning). Catit is the first and second temples that stood = CAT in Hebrew Gematria= ‘כת’ years=  420, the 2^nd temple, and IT =years ית= 410, the first temple, the exact number of years each of the 2 temples stood before their final destruction, Catit is also the Hebrew word for extra Virgin Oil which is a “crushing” of olives to produce oil Just as the Temples were Crushed… This culinary Temple is standing proud producing products of excellent   quality like CATIT oil.

Our next dish was:

                                 

Smoked & Pickled Veal Tongue

Black smoked cream fresh, Bonito flakes, Lightly pickled Shimaji mushrooms, pickled mustard seeds and mustard stems, Asian aioli and crispy Buckwheat, reddish, beetroot vinaigrette and Quail’s egg yolk.

  This dish is as beautiful upon serving as the dish remains upon clearing the black cream fresh and purple beet the yellow cream left artistic smears of colours reminiscent of a good and tasty abstract painting a Jackson Pollock on a dish…unintentionally the guest becomes an artist as well by the mere action of consuming this dish.

The tongue is light and tender and nicely supported by the pickles and steamed carrots. Bonito, the dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), is used as an Umami taste enhancer, and indeed increases the presence of the “umami”  taste of the dish: from Japanese: umai (うまい) “delicious”, mi (味) “taste”, the meaty taste of beef broth which is complementary to this dish. The carrots and mushrooms are reminiscent of the “Pot au Feu” method of traditional Jewish Ashkenazi preparation of boiled tongue, as well as the Buckwheat, a traditional grain accompanying boiled meats in eastern European Jewish cookery.

                                                

Our GRUAUD LAROSE 1970, is in a great shape (a great sigh of relief) and is showing all its tertiary aromas and flavours of coffee, dried figs, bouquet of spice box and dried tobacco with ripe red currant jam touch and notes of green peppercorn. The soft tannins are fully integrated, with enough fruit and acidity to hold the wine throughout the rest of the meal.

                              

Calf’s brain Sofrito

Cream of garlic, puffed crunchu Kinoa with herb seeds, grilled onions, lamb pancetta, onion cream, sugared onions, crispy Ratta potatoes, red wine and Juniper sauce

This is a real successful take off on a traditional Sephardic Jewish dish, with brain as the main ingredient as customary in Moroccan Jewish cuisine. (other recipes use Lamb, beef or chicken). It has all the Sofrito fragrant sauce, from my mother in law’s kitchen (she makes excellent Sofrito, and is a direct descendent of the Great Sepharadi Kabalist Rabi Abraham Ben Samuel Abulafia from Zaragoza, Spain, (1240-1291). Basicly Sofrito is a water based pot roast of meat onions, potatoes and carrots, which is exactly what we got, dissected to its separate ingredients, with each and every one of the products keeping the essence of its role and aroma of the original dish (very clever idea of culinary deconstruction). Deconstruction in cooking, also known as “destructured” cooking, was introduced to cooking in the early nineties by the Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, who produced his restaurant El Bulli dishes that were physically unlike the originals but with all their combined flavors preserved, and that’s exactly what we got here, I love and know real traditional Sofrito BRAVO!

                 

Roasted Mediterranean Slipper Lobster

Tarragon butter, young Autumn Vegetables, morilles- mushrooms, black truffles, white butter sauce, pea cream tortellini and poppy seeds patissière.

Local slipper Lobsters called Seegals by local fisherman along the warm eastern Mediterranean shores. Slipper Lobster is an “ugly little fellla” with the best tasting meat of all known Lobsters in my mind. Despite being “called” lobsters, they are not true lobsters, but are more closely related to the clawless decapods: spiny lobsters and furry lobsters; they have NO front large claws like lobsters, (just ten legs).

The crunchy fresh vegetables, and the cream of green peas tortellini swimming in the butter sauce, pull the dish to the delicate, sweet side which goes very well with the morilles. I take the opportunity to sip on the last drops of the champagne, a perfect match for this dish.

We brought in along in case the 1970 Gruaud will be faulty, but on our 4^th hour around the table and with our final “main” dish we could not resist opening the St. Joseph at hand. We opt to open our 100% Syrah (extra, spare bottle of red wine):

La Dame Brune 2001 Domaine George Vernay Saint Joseph. It turned to be an impressively intense, clean and pure wine with lots of intense raspberries aroma, a touch of pepper and a hint of tar and creosote finished by exotic candied violet touch. It was fresh and crisp and luckily did not lean towards the usual “sweet” finish, reminding more it’s neighboring Crozes Hermitage and Cote Rotie wines. The St. Joseph region gained its AOC only in 1956. It was a small appellation covering less than 100 hectares, nowadays the potential size of the appellation is around 3000 hectares.

Sirloin of Lamb

Dusted in onions ash, green Fava beans, crispy leaves of Malva, crispy crushed wheat, roulade of roast potato with Gruyère patissière thyme and sage, red wine sauce.

Malva leaves or Marsh mellow, from the Okra family are edible leaves used extensively by Bedouins and in Egyptian dishes. The meat is tender and juicy going well with our “dark haired lady” (La Dame Brune), the crispy leaves kept their shape to perfection following the dehydration and light frying process (reminded me of what the London Soho Chinese restaurant call “fried seaweed”) their light touch on the palate while crunching is appealing and the other ingredients (apart from the slightly heavy roulade) complement the main ingredient of the dish nicely.

To break down the intense flavours of the meat dish we are served a mouth cleanser with a twist:

Lavender Panna cotta

Lime Sorbet, brioche croutons, rice crisps, frozen light yoghurt and lemon marshmallow.

 A frozen dish that only when melted in your mouth reassembles to become a Panna cotta (from Italian cooked cream) with the croutons resembling crunchy light Biscotti, the lime sorbet and frozen yoghurt adds a much needed refreshing touch on the palate a perfect mouth cleanser.

Our two deserts arrived at the table together

      

Valrona Chocolate pastry,

 Financier of wild AMARENA Cherries, mouse of nougat and hazelnuts, crumble of pumpkin and nuts, almond crisp tuile biscuits, caramel ice cream.

     

Carrot Puff

Crispy buckwheat, plain yoghurt mouse, fresh herbs, honey and sage ice-cream, pumpkin marmalade and sugared carrots.

Both where exquisite to look at and very light with each ingredient (there are lots!) rightly balanced and measured (even the chocolate mangery was melting into the mouth without the overpowering heaviness that can be associated with fondant style deserts)

The carrot puff was a pleasant surprise, (I do not like carrot based cakes usually) but the light feel and delicate touch of the carrot was impressive. Two great deserts to sum up a meal that equals and even surpasses some great meals I had at times in great restaurants around the world, the easy pace and wonderful service, the inside each dish and within the whole menu was impressive.

I was DARED, Meir Adoni won the dare! This was a meal to remember, of excellent quality and most importantly GREAT FUN.

We sipped the last drops of wine with the restaurant stuff  sampling all the wines we brought, our Joy was complete as we parted the restaurant almost five hours after we started, the pace of the dinner and the “touch of culinary genius” (YES), that came out of the kitchen onto our plates was heartwarming and most importantly perfectly measured (we were not stuffed to our necks).

Thanks to all at CATIT,  we shall meet again soon.

Catit Restaurant : 4 Heichal Ha- Talmud St, Tel Aviv Phone 03 510-7001

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