From our Readers

Wine on the Nile and more
© by Steve Plotnicki

We had planned this trip for almost a year.

Despite having grown up in a fairly orthodox Jewish home, I had never been to the holy land. How I managed to escape an entire generation of kibbutz directors calling me a no-goodnik is a testament to my fortitude. But this is the year of my twin sons B’nei Mitzvah and I thought it was time to finally take the plunge. At least I could say the trip was for their benefit and I could mask the fact that I had the slightest bit of interest in what goes on there. So along with another family that just celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of their daughter, we found ourselves on the plane to Milan for a night of R & R before heading to continents unknown.

Nothing beats getting over your jet lag like hearing the person at the reception desk of your hotel say your room is ready. Especially when it's 9:00am and you have been sitting on a plane all night. Add to that the magic of Lake Como and I assure you that a small nap to say one or two o'clock in the afternoon does the trick. Waking up refreshed, we hurdled down the Autostrada for an afternoon of sightseeing and shopping to be capped off by dinner before heading back to the lake. We started out disappointed when much to our dismay we found out that you needed a reservation to see The Last Supper. It turns out that they just cleaned it and since it's been re-opened you need a reservation to see it. I'm not sure I understand the logic behind that. But the rest of our day was fun and we walked to the Duomo and through the streets poking into various shops.

Our dinner reservation was at Alfredo Gran San Bernardo. It's in an odd place. It's in a residential neighborhood, being the only business on the block and it's located behind the cemetery that they call Monumentale, so called because of the propensity of mausoleums there. I had been there once before about 5 years ago and I had been dying to go back ever since.

We got there at 7:30 and we were the only people in the place. A glance at the menu revealed that every single Milanese specialty of note was available. The wine list was almost as thorough. All the top Piemonte and and Tuscan producers were listed. I settled for a bottle of 1996 Solaia that was $75, less than what it might cost at retail in the states.

I ordered some Cullatello for the table. That's the best part of the proscuitto, the heart. A bit salty but firm while satiny. It was delicious. Along with the ham they brought us some veal meatballs and something called nervetta. When I asked what nervetta was they told me "veal face." Veal face? "Yes, you know, the face of the veal sliced thin." Well it sounds worse than it looked so I gave it a go. Too bad it tasted more like it sounded. Chewy. Maybe if I lived in Milan I would get used to it.

But dinner was another thing and it was as if my Milanese Nona cooked me the meal. I had Riso al Salto which from what I understand is day old risotto that is fried in butter and served like a pancake. It is so crunchy and good that it brings new meaning to the words "al dente." For our mains, I had the Cazzuolla (sp?) and my wife had the Osso Buco. Cazzuolla is a stew of pork loin, ribs and a slice of smoked pork sausage that is cooked with cabbage until the meat is falling apart and the cabbage is nice and mushy. It's sort of like stuffed cabbage in it's component parts. It's served with a cloud of perfectly cooked polenta. The Osso Buco was also melt in your mouth and is served with a small spoon to scoop out the beef marrow in the bone. Both dishes extremely delicious and true comfort food. The Solaia was a great match and had the power to stick with this type of robust food. 92 points. As an aside, they told me the favorite wine of the house is Aldo Conterno Vigna Collonello of which they are rationed a measly 6 bottles per vintage. If you're going to be in Milan, I highly recommend this place. It's casual yet proper with main courses ranging from $15-$20. By 9:30 when we were leaving the place was jumping.

Sunday morning we were off to Cairo. Vienna was as far east as I had ever gone before. This was going to be a whole new thing. The first thing that struck us as strange about Cairo was that they had washing machines for sale at the duty free shops in the airport. Lots of them. I'm used to buying simpler things at the duty free shops like a bottle of Amaretto or cigars. But I guess in some countries the tradition is to buy a GE washer/dryer.

The next strange thing we noticed was that stopping for traffic lights is optional. I'm not making this up. Because the traffic flow is endless, people are racing across the streets trying to avoid being hit by cars and buses. It's the craziest thing. Even on elevated highways. There is a highway in from the airport called "October 6th" (That's another thing I found odd, why name a highway for a war you didn't exactly win?) Well believe it or not, as you drive along this highway there are people standing along the shoulders and occasionally they race across from one side to the other. If I tell you they wait for the last possible moment to lurch across, I'm not exaggerating. We couldn't stop laughing. The other thing that we weren’t used to were pictures of Hosni Mubarek everywhere. At first the kids asked who he was but by the second day, every time they saw the poster they would yell out "yo Hosni." Could you imagine if pictures of Clinton were all over the streets of the U.S.?

After we checked into our hotel, we decided to go out and take a walk before dinner. As it was the last day of a holiday, the streets were teeming with people. We walked the banks of the Nile and you could hardly pass. There were thousands of people everywhere. A number of vendors swooped down on us trying to sell us everything from nuts to souvenirs. And since my wife is blond, sometimes people would reach out just to touch her head.

What became problematic was getting back to our hotel. We had walked up the river and found ourselves having to cross the equivalent of a small highway to get back. What to do? Finally a bunch of old women, who were completely covered from head to toe came along and were preparing themselves to cross. I motioned to my wife that we should stick behind them and despite her loud protests; we stuck with them like glue as they ran across the road avoiding a bus. For those of you who know me, the thought of me following little old ladies running across the street is about as funny as it gets.

That night we were booked on a dinner cruise on the Nile. Fortunately our tour guide booked us on the tackiest one possible. I mean when we got there we had to walk under Nubians who were holding burning torches. But surprisingly the food was decent and all too edible with a good buffet of Middle Eastern food laid out. Just so I could say I did it, I ordered a glass of white wine and what I assume was Chateau Pharaoh was barely drinkable. Dommage.

Monday night we were invited to dinner at the home of the parents of one of my employees. His father is director of the World Bank in Egypt and his mother is an attorney there. They made us an incredible spread of Pakistani food (they are Pakistani) and served a delicious 1993 Auslese (I forgot the producer but Thierry Thiese was the importer) with it. They brought the wine with them from the states and his father told me that they couldn't get any good wine there and they had sent over a few dozen cases of wine. The wine was great and we blew through almost 2 bottles between the 4 of us. A 100 point evening.

Tuesday night we were tired from a full day of traveling and we just ate the Middle Eastern buffet in the hotel. Again more than edible but nothing to write home about. You don't travel to Egypt for the food. But the sights in Egypt were beyond belief and the pyramids were about as awe inspiring as anything I have ever experienced. If I lived there, I would go to see them every day. They are that inspirational. We did bring back what smells like excellent curry powder from the El Khalilli market.

Wednesday we were headed to Jerusalem. Let me tell you that traveling between Arab countries and Israel is not an easy thing. To further complicate things, on the day we wanted to travel the only flight between Cairo and Tel Aviv was at 1:30am and we didn't want to subject the kids to traveling at that time of day. So after much research it was decided that we would fly from Cairo to Amman, Jordan where someone would drive us to the Allenby Bridge checkpoint. There our Jordanian driver would transfer us to an Israeli driver who would take us into Jerusalem.

Our flight to Amman landed at 9:40am and we were at the first checkpoint at 11:00am. Well let me tell you that they don't make it easy for people to get into Israel from Jordan. Unless you are traveling by private car and have the proper permits, the only way to go is via a shuttle bus that takes you from the Jordanian checkpoint to the Israeli checkpoint. We waited forever at the Jordanian side and the bus finally pulled away. I was looking forward to crossing the Jordan River with much anticipation. Well let me tell you that it's the biggest dud imaginable. The river is so narrow that with a good running jump, you might be able to make it across and the bridge itself is a one lane job that looks like something a farmer might have to cross over a stream on his property. The procedure for crossing from Jordan to Israel is amazing. First they open the gate on the Jordan side and the bus drives onto the bridge. After the gate closes and about 30 seconds pass, an electronic gate on the Israeli side opens and the bus pulls up to a checkpoint.

The Israeli side is surreal looking. It feels like you have entered a vast wasteland and it totally gives the appearance of war. It's not something I had ever experienced before and it was eerie. There is a huge cement block bunker that has been constructed with turrets at the top and the hilltops that surround the
checkpoint are peppered with bunkers with machine guns sticking out. As the bus pulls into the checkpoint and with all guns pointing at it, two soldiers approach the bus with mirrors that are on the ends of sticks and they check under the bus for people who might be hiding or for explosives that might be attached to the bottom of the bus. The father of the other family we were traveling with said that he had a similar experience at Checkpoint Charlie when he traveled with his parents as a teenager. Finally we got to Israeli customs. The entire process from checkpoint to checkpoint took almost 2 1/2 hours. By the time we were at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem it was nearly three o'clock. It took us 7 hours to travel a little more than 300 miles. As someone on the bus said, "Welcome to the Middle East."

That night we headed to the haTikva section of Tel Aviv for dinner. The haTikva section is where a large Yemenite community lives and the street Rehov haEtzel contains about 20 restaurants that specialize in Israeli/Yemenite cuisine. These restaurants are called shipudim (maybe someone else can explain what that means). Many months ago in anticipation of my trip, I had e-mailed Daniel Rogov of the newspaper Haaretz and he was kind enough to e-mail a few lists of where to dine in Israel. So we were off to a restaurant called Yehuda Avazi (Yehuda the Goose).

The shipudim are reknowned for their offal. They serve brains, testicles, etc. as well as regular fare like shish kabobs and steaks. But what I was after was foie gras. A number of years ago a French friend of mine told me that Israel is the third largest foie gras producer in the world. While I found this hard to believe, a number of other people confirmed this to me and last year the owner of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Richard Ginor wrote an excellent cookbook on the subject and he listed a recipe that was based on how they prepare foie gras in Israel.

Now if you are a foie gras lover hold onto your hats because a skewer that contains 5-6 good size chunks of perfectly grilled as well as absolutely delicious foie gras (Glatt Kosher to boot) costs all of 24 shekels which is $6. Needless to say that everything else including the Middle Eastern salads and the other grilled meats were great too. Dinner was less than $100 for all of us. Is the United States the only place where kosher food tastes kosher?

Now if I were ever to become a vegetarian, I would consider relocating to Israel. Because of the need to separate milk from meat because of restrictions imposed by Jewish dietary law, the country is a vegetarians delight. Countless dairy restaurants with salad bars exist where they serve a combination of hot and cold foods, most pretty tasty from what we experienced. One can load up a plate for lunch of everything from hummus to blintzes to fried flounder to vegetarian lasagna for less than $10 and Thursday was spent basically eating our meals this way. I did spend a few minutes in what looked like an upscale wine shop.
The selection of Italian wines seemed pretty good and it was an omen of what was to come at dinner the next night

Friday night we decided to jettison the kids and the adults went to dine at Arcadia, reputedly Jerusalem’s best restaurant. Arcadia was contemporary in a way that made it seem like we were in Napa instead of Jerusalem. They presented me with the wine list and sure enough, the Italian section was pretty deep. I asked about Israeli wines and I was told that the best one was something by the name of Castel. But when I asked about a bottle of 1995 Tignanello, the woman who took care of the wines threw the Castel under a bus and nodded at the suggestion of Tignanello instead. Dinner was pretty good which surprised us. I had the foie gras sauteed in cardamom and bathed in vanilla oil and the Merlan (fish I forgot the English translation for) in a sauce made from sweet potatoes and cinnamon. Both quite yummy as was the Tignanello. 90 points and I would return there.

Saturday evening we were pretty hungry and our plans were to feed the kids early and go out to dinner without them. We had spent the day walking around Masada and then floating around in the Dead Sea.
For those of you who have never been there, there is a spa there called Ein Geddi. It was built 10 years ago right on the banks of the Dead Sea. The only problem is that in 10 years the Dead Sea has receded almost 300 yards away from where the spa is which makes the floating part a bit of a trek.

Dinner was at Bistro Dalia Reynaud. Dalia is a lovely Israeli woman in what appears to be her middle thirties who spent 12 years living in France, 8 of them in Alsace. She served us a glorious pumpkin soup and a copious choucroute and her “petite bistro” was charming. Dalia is known for serving the wines of Trimbach but unfortunately she was temporarily sold out of them. They brought what they thought were the next best choices to my table. A Medoc and a Rousillon I never heard of and a 1998 Jaboulet Cotes de Ventoux which is what I opted for. Bad guess on my part, as the Jaboulet didn’t taste like much. It wasn’t unpleasant but it was hard to tell we were drinking wine. 82 points.

Sunday we were touring through Tel Aviv and we stopped at the famous bakery in Jaffa (for the life of me I can’t remember the name.) The place was fantastic. It was a stand with a gigantic wood burning oven. They made these pita like breads that were filled with eggs and turmeric or cheese and spices. They threw the chocolate croissant my son ordered back into the oven for warming and 3 minutes later it came out a melted and gooey masterpiece of baked goods. Dinner was at the kosher Lebanese down the street from the hotel and the grilled baby lamb chops were excellent.

I must say that I found Israel to be quite a pleasant place and in hindsight I’m sorry it took me so long to get there. It was very Mediterranean in feel and it was more like the South of France than I imagined it to be. We ate well and the portions were plentiful wherever we went. The people were very nice and the country seemed new and modern. I shall return. The other thing about it was that the Pope was on a similar schedule to ours. Because of his visit, our hotel was buzzing with famous American broadcast personalities and whenever we turned on the TV, the pictures on the screen were the same ones that we had from our hotel window. We didn’t get to see him up close but our friends did while shopping on Sunday afternoon when he drove right by them. They said he looked tired.

Monday we were starting our journey back and we were off to Rome. Let me tell you that getting out of Israel is easier than getting in, but not by much. To cut to the chase, we left our hotel at 12:15pm and we didn’t arrive in our hotel in Rome until 9:15. It was even worse for our friends who were bumped by Alitalia and had to fly to Rome via Vienna. They didn’t arrive until midnight.

Our hotel was not far from the Spanish Steps and I had booked a table at Nino which is a short block from the bottom of the steps. Nino is a typical Tuscan trattoria and serves food that is significantly better than it has to serve given its location. My wife and I opted for a Bistecca Fiorentina for due. What really surprised me was the wine list which was a knockout listing all the biggies on it. I chose a bottle of 1996 Siepi ($50) which I thought was truly stellar. 95 points and I am going to try and buy some for laying a way. We enjoyed our dinner so much that my wife requested that we return to Nino the next night as well.

Tuesday we were all on the “Rome in a day” tour program, which meant we were trying to cram everything into a single day. Not an easy task but we were determined. We did a pretty good job, starting at the Coliseum and continuing onto the Forum. A quick visit to the Fountain of Trevi followed by lunch in the ghetto at Pipperno. Pipperno’s menu contains a number of dishes that are derived from the Roman Jewish community with Artichokes ala Judaia being the most famous one. This was my 4th visit to Rome and I had somehow never sampled this dish. Well I have to say that I missed a lot because it was absolutely delicious. The cut the outer leaves off of the artichoke and they flatten the remains, which is then sautéed in olive oil. The outer leaves become crispy and the artichoke heart stays soft. It makes for a great contrast in textures and it is quite delicious. With our artichokes we had a bottle of 1997 Colio Schiopetto Pinot Bianco, 90 points ($30) that went perfectly.

We spent the afternoon at the Vatican touring through the museum and St. Peters afterwards. I have to say that this visit to Rome was my favorite. Because this is the Jubilee year there, they have cleaned up the city to make it look beautiful. I had always found Rome to be grungy but this time it was sparkling. Even the Trevi fountain, which always looked as though it had been part of an emissions test, looked beautiful and clean. The Sistine Chapel had also been cleaned since my last visit and that had a special glow to it as well.

That night we were back at Nino’s. This time I sprang for the steak from the Chianina breed of cow. It was thinly sliced and grilled to perfection with a salty exterior. With it I ordered a bottle of 1997 Montevetrano from Campania ($30). This was the 3rd or 4th time I’ve had it and this was its best showing. I happen to like the wines from Campania. They have such a distinct mineral component to them. You can really taste the earth. 95 points for the Montevetrano and an amazing price for this wine in a restaurant.

All in all we had a fantastic time. In 12 short days we had seen the Pyramids, the Karnak Temple, the Wailing Wall and the Sistine Chapel and numerous other larger than life sights. To boot, we drank some pretty excellent Italian wines at prices that made them even more enjoyable. Israel turned out to be not so bad after all. In fact, it turned out to be a pretty good place. Especially when I was able to sneak in some WLDG time at the King David’s business center.

March 30, 2000