Zahav - Philadelphia
When I settled on flying in and out of Philadelphia this summer for my annual east coast summer visit, I knew I wanted to go to dinner at Zahav. And then Michael Solomonov won the James Beard award for Outstanding Chef and I realized it might be a challenge to get a reservation. However with some planning and good timing, I was all set.
Located not too far from the historic sites in city-center Philadelphia, Zahav is on a quiet corner, and although the outside was quiet and you'd hardly know it was there, when we walked in the restaurant was full and bustling.
There were a couple options on the menu, regular a la carte, a set course "taste of Zahav", or the full chef's tasting menu. We went with the full tasting menu, because why not? And that was it for decision making. The 6 salatim arrived first: eggplant, fennel, celery, cabbage, green beans, and cauliflower. These were quickly followed by hummus and laffa. And really I would have been pretty satisfied right there. The salads were really refreshing on a hot evening.
Next up was a selection of mezze, peaches and turnips, pastilla filled with cheese, watermelon salad with feta and black olives, and fried cauliflower. My favorite by far was the watermelon salad, and we probably would not have ordered it given a choice. It was light and sweet and refreshing, the sweet offset by the mild, salty feta.
The tender, rich lamb is not on the menu, and is only available on the tasting menu. The pomegranate molasses glazed lamb was pretty amazing. And the crispy rice was really pretty on the plate and satisfyingly crisp.
And then there was dessert... This was pretty much the entire dessert menu, maybe there was one other item that we didn't try. These desserts were really interesting and most of the time this would be my dream come true to try all the desserts, but I was getting pretty full, so it was a bit overwhelming in the end. My favorite of the three was the Malabi (Israeli milk pudding) custard with cherries, cookies, and white chocolate. It was creamy and soothing with the bits of crunchy cookie and sweet cherries on the side. Konafi with chocolate, blackberries, and fenugreek ice cream was quite rich. And the lemon poppyseed cake was a little dry, but the smear of pistachio butter on the plate was really interesting, it was green and the texture of peanut butter, along with rhubarb ice cream and strawberries.
