A good catch

If a taste of the Mediterranean tickles your fancy, fish restaurant Shuri Buri in Herzliya Pituah is sure to hit the spot. This casual family-run restaurant is a well-established place, serving up its fresh fish dishes since 1993. Owner Moshe Levi came up with the name by combining his two favorite fish.

Shuri is from the Mediterranean Sea, and buri is a fish often used in Israeli cooking.

The design of the restaurant is simple, with wooden tables and chairs, and baskets and jars filled with vegetables, pickles and the like.

As soon as we sat down, our attentive waitress took our drink orders and promptly brought us two glasses of white wine (NIS 17), swiftly followed by an array of mouth-watering meze. The appetizers are included in the price of any main meal at Shuri Buri and may be replenished as many times as your heart (or stomach!) desires, making for a great deal. By and large, the meze menu stays the same with successfully tried and tested miniature dishes, accompanied by warm sliced bread.

Only a few of the dishes using seasonal fruits and vegetables change according to the time of year.

Our spread included cubed beet root, ekra, tehina, Israeli salad, tzatziki, matbucha, grilled eggplant and Asian eggplant salad, zucchini with a drizzle of yoghurt sauce, matias fish with onion, olives, and the best guacamole I have ever tasted. The latter was a perfect fusion of crunchy peppers, soft chunks of avocado and lemon juice mixed in mashed avocado, with just the right amount of coriander to round it off with a kick. Another favorite of mine was the Palamida fish (Spanish mackerel), while my companion couldn’t get enough of the tzatziki and matias. The meze were all so delicious, that it took all our self-discipline to put down our cutler y and leave some room for the main event.

For the main course, I chose to trust the name of the restaurant and tr y out their Buri (NIS 82), while my dining companion opted for the denis (NIS 89) and a ver y generous helping of French fries (NIS 14). The fish came accompanied with a green salad. Shuri Buri also offers a seafood menu that includes shrimp and calamari. For those who prefer delicate flavors, the denis is perfect, while the buri has a full flavor and a strong taste of the sea. Although the kitchen ser ves seafood, all the fish is kosher, and the restaurant actually has a kashrut certificate specifically for the fish. Therefore, as restaurant manager Michal Levi explained to us, there are many “religious light” Jewish customers that dine there.

Levi urged us to leave room for dessert, all made by her. So after we had eaten as much as we could of the excellent fresh fish, we selected two desserts: dulce de leche with whipped cream topped with candied pecan nuts (NIS 28) and meringue with frozen yogurt and strawberries (NIS 28). The former was indulgently rich and creamy, while the latter was sweet and refreshing and slipped down more easily after the heavy meal.

Feeling full and sleepy, my companion drank an espresso before we hit the road back to Tel Aviv, satisfied with the high-quality food and excellent service that we had received. We will most certainly be back again to sample some of their other fish.

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.

Shuri Buri
Not kosher
99 Medinat Hayehudim St., Herzliya Pituah
Tel: (09) 954-3194