The challenge of summer vacation in Israel is not just the soaring temperatures and (too) long school break for kids and teens. These characteristics, after all, exist around the world to varying degrees of boundary-testing. Here, of course, in what has long become an increasingly complicated gaming act, tasks are added and difficulties pile up — from dysfunctional frameworks that leave young people mostly at home to wars and operations that ground them. A uniquely Israeli combination.
And so, no matter how you try to handle this vacation or what you do to play with it and lighten it up, you still wake up every morning to a kitchen waiting to be activated and mouths waiting for food — with patience that decreases by the day. All this, it seems, is what Meatman is trying to solve. Trying, satisfying, succeeding — and even saving. Both money and time.
The Lagziel brothers’ family meat empire expanded years ago into the world of restaurants and hospitality (and recently celebrated the highly anticipated opening of Beef at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market), but its core was, is, and always will be meat and the butchery skills it requires. Now everything simply comes together into summer vacation boxes designed with you in mind, offering a summer experience that’s a little less sweaty and a bit more delicious.
These are essentially meal kit boxes that aim to build a complete meal for you, requiring only basic kitchen work (which, if you play your cards right, can even serve as an activity on its own) and delivering not only a satisfying final result in terms of ingredients and flavor, but also shaving off a good few percent from grocery and supermarket bills.
The menu includes six options in the form of a hamburger meal (five hamburgers, fries, and five hamburger buns, NIS 120), pasta and sausage meal (chicken sausage pack, Rustichella pasta, tomato sauce, NIS 59.90), spaghetti and meatballs meal (“Iris’ meatballs” pack, Rustichella pasta pack, tomato sauce, NIS 59.90), schnitzel meal (1 kg thin chicken schnitzel, breadcrumb pack, NIS 69), kebab meal (house kebab pack, Monte Carlo tahini, pack of fresh pita bread, NIS 59.90), and a Bolognese meal (1 kg ground beef, Rustichella pasta pack, tomato sauce, NIS 65).
The meat, hardly needs saying, is excellent. It features properly in the meatballs and kebab, rises to new heights in the burgers, but stands out especially in the sausage category — often neglected in stores and butcher shops. With it, the path is paved for a successful meal, and the shortcuts in these boxes — including tomato sauce that requires nothing more than a seasoning boost, and fantastic pita bread that’s a real find — easily take care of lunch or dinner for the whole family. Until the next meal, of course.