Freedom Festival

Ready-to-serve or seasoned semi-cooked dishes and ready-made kosher cakes will take some of the load off your back

By NERIA BARR
passover food (photo credit: courtesy)
passover food
(photo credit: courtesy)
Is it your turn to host the Seder dinner this year? Or maybe you were asked to bring the fish and have no clue how to go about it? Plenty of restaurants and catering services will be happy to solve this problem. We checked a few options – but do check with your favorite local restaurants as well.
Chef Avi Turgeman cooks what he describes as “an Israeli cuisine with touches of California, Paris, Asian and my grandma’s recipes.” Mixing all of these influences, he offers catering services and home deliveries of complete meals.
For the Seder night he offers an extensive menu you can choose from and he will deliver it to your doorstep.
For NIS 300 per person, he will send eight starters to choose from, a hot starter, two main dishes and various desserts. For orders of 20 or more the price drops to NIS 280 per person.
Starters include delicacies such as the obvious chopped liver, and surprises such as chard and Turkish spinach with humous, beetroot salad, very good artichokes, asparagus and endive, carpaccio, stuffed vine leaves and more.
There are also hot firsts such as fish kebab and eggplant stuffed with lamb, main dishes including barbecued lamb spare ribs, veal sofrito, goose and more. Desserts include chocolate truffles, halva and pistachio an and much more.
Kosher, no certificate. Call Avi or Dikla at 054-232-2907, 054- 733-7353
Home made A delicatessen that offers, among other choices, a full Seder meal consisting of coarsely chopped liver with mustard (NIS 25 per portion), festive potato puffs (NIS 6) rice with lamb and pomegranate honey (NIS 28), beef bourguignon (NIS 44) and poppyseed mousse with meringue (NIS 16). All dishes can be kept in the refrigerator and heated before the meal.
For more choices and details go to www.home-madefood.co.il or call (03) 624-8111.
Regina is A lovely new place in the Tahana compound in Tel Aviv, this kosher bistro offers “grandma’s cuisine” that will remind every Israeli of his home meals, wherever the family came from. For the Seder night they offer a takeout menu including traditional chopped liver with homemade pickles (NIS 28), Hot Moroccan fish (NIS 56), Jerusalem chicken in wine and dried fruit (NIS 56) and beef stew with mushroom and chestnuts (NIS 58). Call (03) 736-7474.
La Maison True to its name, “The Home,” this deli-cum-bistro offers non-kosher Eastern- European style dishes for the Seder that bring back tastes from times past. The chefs offer hand-chopped liver (NIS 9 for 100 gr.), homemade herring (NIS 20 for 100 gr.), salmon gravlax (NIS 28 for 100 gr.), and for main dishes ready-to-cook corned beef, tongue and more.
(NIS 16 to NIS 19 for 100 gr.) Not kosher. (03) 620-6022, Rehov Tchernichowsky 1, Tel Aviv. Not kosher.
The Tel Aviv Port Food Halls
The relatively new culinary center is all geared up for the Seder night, with many offerings for different tastes.
Moo&Moo butchery is a very friendly place for meat lovers. The young and knowledgeable owners will explain and advise and make sure your dishes will come out perfect.
Try their ready-made chopped liver (NIS 19 for 250 gr.), chicken or beef stock (NIS 22 per kg.), homemade horseradish, onion jam or homemade cherry jam (NIS 22 for 250 gr.), and make sure you get a nice roast ready to be cooked. We loved the sirloin in herbs and olive oil (NIS 128 per kg.). Other very good choices are the pickled tongue (NIS 62), boneless lamb (NIS 153 per kg.) and many organic chicken possibilities. (03) 534-4859.
Klops is another of the food halls shops. Yankeleh Rot and his sister Hannah Rubin have been cooking Polish-Jewish food for the last 17 years, following their mother’s recipes.
You can try their fantastic gefilte fish (the best we have tasted) and it comes in two versions – sweet or hot – to suit all tastes, there is traditional chopped liver with fried onions (NIS 8.99), potato salad, homemade horseradish and more.
Call 077-440-6487 for a full list and prices. Deliveries can be arranged.
Delicious A well-established delicatessen in northern Tel Aviv, now has a branch in the port food halls as well. Its best offering for the Seder night is the smoked-steamed and truly delicious New York-style beef pastrami. It’s great for dinner and even better if you have leftovers for the next day. Special price for Pessah is NIS 19 for 100 gr., and the aioli is on the house.
Click for special Jpost Pessah features
Click for special Jpost Pessah features
 The desserts
No need to settle for the dry Pessah cookies and matza cakes. In the past, most bakeries used to close for Pessah; now almost all of them offer an extensive sweets menu of desserts that are so good you’d never guess they had no flour in them.
Tatti bakery offers what we thought was the best Pessah cake we had in years – the poppy-seed coconut chocolate cake is excellent, not too sweet and perfect to have with the after-dinner coffee.
There are many other cakes, such as nut pies, lemon pies and fudge as well as many kinds of cookies, including our favorite Amaretto, marzipan and almonds (NIS 28 to NIS 33), and sweets, including different flavors of marshmallow and marzipan (NIS 21 to 23 for 100 gr.). Not kosher. Call (03) 539-2500.
The Biscotti bakery also offers a whole collection of baked goods kosher for Pessah, with many rich chocolate and fruit desserts. Family- size desserts are NIS 138, all very polished and excellent.
The white chocolate and passion-fruit dessert got applause from the younger generation, while the older ones were very interested in the sugar-free selection of desserts. Kosher. For more details and to place orders call (03) 373-0025 www.biscotti.co.il.

The Idelson chain of topend cafes, Tel Aviv Offers for Pessah its collection of baked goods starting with the very popular almond macaroons (NIS 20 for 100 gr.) to rich chocolate, mousse and fruit cakes (NIS 110 to NIS 160) and cookies (NIS 17 for 100 gr.) Not kosher.
Shemo bakeries brings a special new collection for every holiday. For Pessah it has created a completely new line, all kosher and very pretty. There are savory baked goods as well as cakes, cookies. Sweets and personal desserts. Top of the list for us are the macaroons (NIS 35 for 300 gr.) – they come in many flavors and are great to bring with to the dinner.
Other cookies include almond, brownies, chocolate chips and more. There are also cold mousse cakes – Mozart, tri-colad, Concorde and more from NIS 49 each, chocolate pies and strawberry tarts (NIS 45 to NIS 49), a variety of cakes (NIS 35 to NIS 45) and savory quiches (NIS 49). For more information and locations go to www.shemo.co.il, or call (04) 841-8840. Kosher.