People from afar are still coming to this country, bringing everything from French crepes Suzette to Colombian meat pies, from pad Thai to Jamaican jerk chicken. That's what I pondered as I sat at a bare table at the Jerusalem Cafe & Kosher Deli in Dunedin, listening to the owners, Yair and Dana Nabaa, 1992 emigrants from Israel, converse in Hebrew with customers.
On the menu you'll find Glatt Kosher delicacies, dishes one rarely finds outside major metropolitan areas like New York or Miami. Glatt Kosher means the food and its entire preparation is routinely inspected by a mashgiach, or holy person, generally a rabbi; and the cafe adheres strictly to ancient Jewish traditions requiring that meat and dairy products not be served together. Thus, you may order a bagel with cream cheese, but as takeout only — and dairy products are prepared in a kitchen separate from that of the restaurant.
Though diners may notice signs of respect for religious tradition, such as the Hebrew meal prayer on a flier on every table, they come for the food, which is authentic Middle Eastern and Jewish-American fare. There you'll eat a much softer pita than you typically find, served with a falafel that's lightly fried and pleasantly spiced and crispy on the outside, chewy-soft on the inside. Then there's the delicate chicken soup, with all its scientifically proven medicinal properties; and, lest we forget the straw-like texture of handmade halvah, drizzled with chocolate.
Yes, there were a few problems, some involving basics that diners might expect from a competent restaurant: The service was notably poor both times we visited — various servers forgot us. A more serious negative surfaced in one of a dozen different dishes we took home from the deli counter — but I'll get to that later.
The cafe sits adjacent to a flower shop and an ice cream parlor, in the Guy Plaza shopping center, along busy State Road 580, which is called Main Street when you get to Dunedin. Inside, it is painted to mimic clay-stone walls, with painted frescoes of Middle Eastern scenes along one wall. The tables are plain; there is a small grocery and a takeout section; the restaurant also operates a catering business.
Our first visit was at lunch, so naturally we were going to try the kosher Reuben ($7.50), a thick homemade slab of hot corned beef, layered with Russian dressing and sauerkraut, and wedged between two pieces of grilled rye bread.
Actually, the Reuben sandwich is not an ancient dish — it is 20th Century Jewish-American, with unclear origins. It has been credited to Arthur Reuben, owner of a famous New York City deli, and to Reuben Kay, an Omaha businessman whose creation became the most popular dish at the local Blackstone Hotel. Whoever the inventor, it has become a staple of Jewish menus.
The sandwich was thick, its meat fall-apart tender, a winner even with one fault — the sauce was too thin, and thus dripped beneath the sandwich, rendering the bottom unacceptably gooshy. Regardless, I devoured it, along with a crunchy, white-cabbage coleslaw bathed in a barely sweet dressing. The almost-obscenely huge dill pickle was pliable rather than crisp, so I left it on the plate.
My dining companion loved her falafel sandwich ($3.95), its pita pocket atypically soft and cloudlike, with two fried balls of falafel — made from garbanzo beans, cilantro, onion and spice — peeking out; it was set atop diced raw tomato, cucumber and parsley, sprinkled with lemon juice, and fortified with a smooth layer of hummus. The whole shmear was swathed in tahini, a tangy sesame sauce.
During another visit, we enjoyed a classic Jewish chicken soup ($2.95), an understated broth with thin shards of soft noodles and bits of chicken. Less successful was an appetizer called a spinach knish ($1.95), mushy pastry with a flat filling.
The entree I tried, shawarmah ($7.95) was excellent — sauteed cubes of chicken set in a pita pocket. We also tried various deli items and baked goods, such as tabouli, carrot, cucumber and red cabbage salads; a loaf of challah bread and rye bagels. All were good to excellent, except the eggplant salad, which had that tingling taste that indicated it had stayed in its container too long — not health-threatening, according to licensed dietitian Mary Keith, ph.D., of the University of Florida and Hillsborough County Cooperative Extension Service, who attributed the problem to fermentation. During a second visit, the eggplant salad had been mercifully replaced with a fresh version.
The standout dessert was a slice of homemade halvah ($1.50), a confection made from ground sesame seeds and honey. It was drizzled with chocolate sauce. What makes halvah so distinctive is its texture, the satisfying grind of sugar crystals between your teeth, the heavy sweetness. It was so sweet I would have liked hot coffee to dilute its sugar content, but alas, the coffee was cold and tasteless, as it came from a Thermos that had apparently sat, neglected, on the counter all morning.
Service was poor both times we dined there. The waitresses were friendly, but the first time they kept abandoning us, leaving us high and dry after dessert (we waited a long time for the check). On the second visit, we would've ordered dessert, but the waitress left us before we had a chance. After quite a wait, we finally gave up and called for the check.
In all, Jerusalem Cafe's plusses outweighed its minuses, and I would go there again for a satiating excursion into Israeli culture.
Contact Sara Kennedy at sara.kennedy@weeklyplanet.com or call 813-248-8888, ext. 116.
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2002.