Chef Michael Solomonov and his partners at Cook+Solo have created a surprising trio of restaurants in Philadelphia: Xochitl is a taqueria and tequila bar, Percy Street Barbecue is a Texas-style bbq, and Zahav is a modern Israeli masterpiece. I can't speak to the first two, but I had the delicious experience of visiting Zahav this past weekend. Zahav means "gold" in Hebrew and you can see its influences in the whole atmosphere of the restaurant. The decor is immediately inviting and comfortable, with golden limestone walls and floor, meant to look like Jerusalem stone, which gives the whole place a sort of golden glow. High ceilings and rustic furniture add to the overall relaxed feeling. Partway through our meal, the staff opened all the blinds in the restaurant, I can only assume so that patrons could watch the sunset? Not sure on that one. Maybe they just wanted more natural light.
It's a happy coincidence that Chef Solomonov was visiting the synagogue where Josh is interning and an even happier coincidence that they got to chatting recently and Josh was then able to alert said chef to our reservation on Saturday! Our table was "not quite ready" upon our arrival which gave Chef Solomonov a chance to come say hello and offer us a glass of cava (perfect for a hot day!)!
After perusing the menu for several minutes (and then a few more...there were so many intriguing options!), we decided to get the Tay'im menu, which means Taste of Zahav. With this option, we began the meal with hummus and salatim, a daily selection of 8 salads. The hummus is served with the most amazing laffa bread - thinner and more delicate than pita - baked so it comes out piping hot and sprinkled with za'atar (typical Israeli spice). The top salad for me was the beet and tahini salad. So pretty in pink! There was also a fennel salad that was to die for. Oh! And I almost forgot the tabouleh! Best tabouleh I've had! I believe there were apples and walnuts in it! I wasn't going to post the picture of it but now I will. Unfortunately the only camera we had with us at dinner was Josh's trusty iPhone, so please bear with the slightly-less-than-top-quality pics!
The next part of the Tay'im menu let us each choose 2 mezze dishes. With 13 possible options, I didn't know what to with myself! The moment I thought I chose the crispy haloumi, I found the fried cauliflower with chive, oil, mint and garlic! Cauliflower won that battle. And it wasn't one of those heavy fried dishes. It was light and crispy with the refreshing minty chivey sauce underneath. Amazing. To compliment what I thought would be a heavier fried dish I went with kibbe naya, which is raw lamb (kinda like steak tartar...but lamb. duh) with bulgur, black harissa, baby romaine. We went a little outside the box, which was fun. Josh chose the Gondi (chicken & chickpea dumplings, chicken broth, spring onions) and Mina. Oh Mina, you are so delicious. It was smoked brisket, brought over from the BBQ restaurant, cooked or garnished or something with coffee, and wrapped in matzah. Yes, matzah. Wow.
And if that wasn't enough, we still have 2 courses to go! We each chose one dish from the Al Ha'esh offerings, which are coal grilled dishes. Josh chose duck breast with lovage pilaf (not sure what that is, even now, after having eaten it! It was pretty much like a delicious rice), barberries (kind of like dried currants?) and asparagus. That was definitely one of my favorites of the night! Unfortunately, the picture is totally blurry! I chose Kofte, which were 2 beef and lamb meatballs. Probably my least favorite, yet not not good (get that?), dish of the evening. They were a little, shall we say...solid. Dense. That's the perfect descriptor for them. Dense. And another gift from the chef came in the form of a dish I had been agonizing over getting before I went with Kofte. So thank you, thank you Chef Solomonov for delivering to us the mouthwateringly good Royal Trumpet Mushrooms served with chickpea puree, lamb belly "shawarma," allspice. ohmygoodness. Yum. We forgot that the chickpea puree was chickpea puree and had a really tough time figuring out what this incredible yellow sauce was. It really didn't taste like chickpeas at all!
Oh, dessert.
We forgot to take a picture and just dove right in! We ordered Poached Rhubarb with melon sorbet, white chocolate, nuts, and Almond-Apricot Rugelach with apricot sorbet, honey-roasted apricot. Thankfully, the waitress mistakenly brought us the wrong dessert in place of the rugelach. Instead we were delighted to see Kataifi with valrhona chocolate, labaneh ice cream, mango. Kataifi is a play on another middle-Eastern dessert, kanafeh, which I have had in Israel and LOVE. I belive Kataifi may actually be Greek. But Chef Solomonov's Kataifi is shredded phyllo with chocolate in the middle instead of a sweet ricotta and honey of the kanafeh. It was amazing. We also were given Halvah moose with chickpea praline and berries. I'm not a huge halvah fan, but this was INCREDIBLE!
We lingered over our dinner for a good two hours or so and I, for one, was sad when it was over! Not that I could have eaten anything else! I'm sure I'll be making a return trip, seeing as we have friends in Philly to visit. Next time, though, I'm going for the Mesibah dinner, which means "party time!" The main attraction to that is the whole-roasted lamb shoulder with pomegranate and chickpeas. Something to look forward to...
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