Restaurant Helena, Caesarea

Wednesday 10 July

The sports center diet of chicken thighs, chicken schnitzel, and minced chicken schnitzel was interrupted today to celebrate the end of the most hectic part of the excavations, the successful taking of aerial photos of our site, and our first day off, which happened to also be Barbara's birthday. 

We only had to get clean, dress up, and travel down to the Crusader City and Port of Caesarea to try Restaurant Helena.  This is a new and highly touted place, with very original food, at least for Israel. 

We started with a toast in a local sparkler, Gamla Brut NV from the Golan Heights Winery - okay for a celebration, but with no depth or yeastiness.

As usual, we split two appetizers: five grilled scallops in black butter with fresh figs and pecan bits, and ocean fish carpaccio with cherry tomatoes, tobiko (flying fish caviar), radishes, and cucumber arak sorbet.

Each of those was the size of a main course back in the States (and about the price), so we just had one main: black mussels with blue cheese sauce and tempura sea asparagus (salicornia/samphire).  We'd never had the sea asparagus, which was like tender fried green sticks, but the mussels in blue cheese sauce were also surprisingly delicious.

By that time, we'd gone on to a 2011 Yarden Chardonnay from Odem vineyard in the Galilee - very good and varietal.

  

Then we trooped back to the sports center for dessert.  Kathryn supplied limoncello, Kathy, Jordana, and Sam brought a platter of Turkish-style sweets from Akko, and our friend Katia had brought Barbara a delicious apple strudel that morning, which Barbara cut, appropriately enough, with a Marshalltown trowel.

Then it was back to the usual sports center grub for another two days, until we set out for our dusty little home in the hills, Moshav Zafririm.