an evening out

Last night the company took my department and our spouses out to Papagaios in Haifa's Hutzot HaMifratz. This restaurant gives a new meaning to the word busserfest. All you can eat for 140 shek per person, or you can bump it to 180 shek and include drinks and dessert. The restaurant is under the hashgacha of the rabanut. Our shita is to call the mashgiach of a restaurant we want to go and ask him which food we can eat. They are generally very helpful. The mashgiach at Papagaios signs off on which meat is glatt per day and they have the list at the maitre d's desk.

You don't order food at Papgaios, you order a style of food. They have choices or Brazilian meat, fish, vegetarian and children's. Obviously, we went with the Brazilian meat. They start off with a platter of wings and salads on the table (and bread but you're supposed to ignore the bread or you won't have room for the meat) and then start to work. Their style is to first bring you everything to try and then bring you more of whatever you want, if you still have any room after that.
They bring skewers full of meat to the table and give a little piece to every one. Then they bring the next course. You don't have to try anything you don't want to. They brought chicken breasts, polkas, kabobs (in Israel a kabob is grilled ground meat, like a hamburger, not what we call a shish kabob), choriesis (like hot dogs, the only meat that wasn't glatt), chicken liver and goose hearts. Then they started with the serious food. Entricote steak marinated in beer, they cut it into slices at the table so people who wanted well done got the outside and people who wanted rare got the inside, sinta steak, entricote, not marinated in beer, sinta steak slices (much better then the first chunk of sinta they brought) and ribs.

After the ribs (which were delicious), they are done with the presentation and then they ask you if you would like more of anything. Most people at that point were done. I continued a little bit farther and had seconds of the entricote and the ribs.

All in all, it was a most excellent dining experience.