Espresso Bar, Tel Aviv

Espresso Bar, 166 Dizengoff, Tel Aviv

Espresso Bar, Tel Aviv is located on the very central and busy corner of Ben Gurion and Dizengoff.  The clean and modern looking cafe offers a variety of cafe dishes and a decent business lunch special.  It’s a great place to sit outside and people watch during the day.  Espresso Bar’s business lunch consists of one main dish and for 10NIS more you receive an appetizer and drink.

Appetizers at the time included: chopped liver, which was earthy and accompanied with wonderfully tangy caramelized onions and fresh french bread, salmon bruschetta, and a beet carpaccio with cranberries that made for a wonderful and unexpected combination.  The main dish of chicken schnitzel was a large portion to satisfy your hunger, but it was debatable on how amazing the schnitzel is, compared to the ones your grandmother use to make at home.  With restaurants like Espresso Bar and Cafe Noir for example, the key is to find thin, crispy and consistent schnitzel.  And as far as “gourmet” schintzel goes – Espresso Bar delivers a fine enough dish.

The desserts at Espresso Bar were definitely hard to turn down.  Particularly the very cute, compact round cheese cake with a lovely berry reduction.  If you are in the mood for a divine chocolate sugar rush try the casetta – a volcano of chocolate poured over vanilla ice cream and meringue cookies.

Espresso Bar Dishes
Schnitzel Dizzy 48NIS
Beet Carpaccio 10NIS 
Hibiscus teapot 2NIS
Chopped Liver 26NIS
Salmon Bruschetta 32NIS
Mint Tea 20NIS
Cheesecake 34NIS
Casetta 36NIS

Espresso Bar Cafe Restaurant Rating

They Called it Espresso Bar, Tel Aviv

It was a recently that I and some friends were looking for a coffee shop in Tel Aviv to get some studying and paper writing done. It’s that time of the school year, which also coincided with Tisha B’Av, a fast day in Israel that has many places closing down for the entire day.  Luckily, being in Tel Aviv you can find plenty of cafes on Dizengoff to choose from.  Although I wonder what it would be like to fast for an entire day and yet only drink coffee… I’ll keep that in mind if I ever have an entire house I need to paint.

Once again I was with Max and knowing that Espresso Bar on Dizengoff was open, we headed there post-haste.  I had heard from my friend Ayelet they had a decent business lunch and word on the street is they have some pretty decent schnitzel. (By word on the street I mean someone I know randomly told me their schnitzel was the best.)  Ever since my experience at Cafe Noir – when I DIDN’T get the schnitzel – I thought Espresso Bar would be a good place to start building up my schnitzel connoisseurship.  Connoisseurship is the first step to official schnitzel aficionadoness.  (eatdrinktelaviv – bringing new words to life!)

We are here to do Business at Espresso Bar Cafe

Espresso Bar has always attracted me because of its location – primely placed at the corner of Dizengoff and Ben Gurion, with its white/green/black very clean and simple design.  There are more seats on the outside but you can still find refuge from the heat inside with their 8-10 white marble looking tables.

The business lunch is as follows:

• Order one main course and for 10 shekels more you can get an appetizer and a drink.
• That’s it.
• Not sure why I made it in bullet points but it’s best these things come in three.

Max wasn’t in the mood for anything as a main so he ordered two appetizers – the chopped liver and the salmon brushetta with some simple mint tea.

Is it allowed to drink tea from an espresso cup?

I ordered the schnitzel (afficianodo here I come), with the beet carpaccio and some hibiscus tea.

Yeah, two gangsters sitting back sipping on some relaxing tea.  Don’t judge, it’s very healthy.

Suggestions at the Tel Aviv Restaurant

Anyway, the chopped liver started out very subtle in flavor but within a few second the fullness of the liver (iron) taste hits you.  It’s pretty strong but the chopped liver isn’t so much chopped as it is a smooth creamy texture with caramelized onions to give it that sweetness it needs.

My beet carpaccio was excellent.  It was a delicate combination of thinly sliced beets, cranberries, feta cheese and walnuts, topped with sliced apples.  It was subtle, crunchy at times, and sweet.  The cranberries really broke through the dish and made it something to savor.

The schnitzel was debatable.  I couldn’t tell if it was really good or just well…schnitzel.  It was thin, evenly cooked, not dry and the breading was fine.  I dabbled some mustard and on the suggestion of Max used my very ordinary salad as a sort of pico de gallo.

Max orders the cheesecake as dessert and since I didn’t get a chance to tate it any of it, I had to basically interview the bum to discern how it was compared to New York Style cheesecake (from New York of course).

So how was it compared to New York Cheese Cake? 

The cheese was lighter, and the crust and topping were good, Max assured.  It comes with a berry reduction, and I found the disc shape to be really nice in presentation.

I ordered the Casetta, which was “the must try dessert” according to the Espresso Bar waitress.  It’s a large portion of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two meringue cookies, which is then drenched in warm chocolate sauce and sprinkled quite nicely with pistachio bits.  And while the Casetta will satisfy your icecream-chocolate cravings (and it may or may not have caused me to slip into a coma-nap for 2 hours) it wasn’t anything more than an ice cream sundae.

Behold the towering mountain of ice cream!

Overall, Espresso Bar offers an eclectic mix of dishes and the staff is friendly and attentive enough for you to feel like you are being taken care of and have enough space to get your work done.  Which, as a result of eating the mountain of ice cream I got no work done for my finals.  Their treats are good, just beware the sugar rush!

Blarg!

NomNom: They charged 2 shekels more for a teapot of hibiscus tea, even though they did say the drink was included in the 10 shekel upgrade for the business lunch.  Just be aware of that.

Captain Blarg: I also noticed, since my wife says I never notice anything — that Max’s tea was 20 shekels which seems a bit steep for well… steeped mint leaves.