Return to Gingi, Hadar Mall, Talpiyot, Jerusalem

Last week, my friend and I, with little time to do our usual menu/price survey before eating lunch, decided to return to "Steakiyat Ginji," at the Talpiyot Hadar Mall, Jerusalem, because we had really enjoyed the meal we had there a few months ago.

We even ordered exactly the same thing as before. The price of ns39 for freshly broiled (according to halacha, Jewish Law) liver and unlimited salads, the best salads we've ever eaten, is a bargain for sure. We didn't even glance at the basket of pittot this time, because we weren't even tempted. We were too busy drooling over the salads to be bothered with the bread.

The waiter first served us the liver with "french fries," because we had forgotten to mention we didn't want potatoes. When we apologetically said that we needed a substitution, he quickly offered to bring our liver with fresh salad. No muss, no fuss, unlike other restaurants.

I don't usually review the same restaurant more than once, but my experience at Steakiyat Ginji סטיקיית ג'נג'י was so good, they do deserve a second blog post. As a restaurant reviewer I should have ordered something else, but since I never prepare liver, and I almost never have the opportunity to eat it, that was what I ordered. My friend was of the same mind as me about it.

I highly recommend the restaurant. I believe that it's a chain, so if you're familiar with other branches, please give information in the comments, thanks.

TV Kashrut Problem

There's a very popular cooking program on Israel's Chanel 1, Chaim Cohen's "Shum, Pilpel v'Zayit," "Garlic, Pepper and Olives." I have no idea if their studio kitchen is actually kosher, or sort of kosher or doesn't even pretend to be kosher.

I never saw him demonstrate a recipe combining meat and milk or some traif ingredient.

The problem is something that someone who only knows "the basics" of kashrut can get caught in. He used liver in a recipe as if if was regular meat. Liver requires a special kashering process, burning over a flame, so the blood will be burnt, destroyed. Other meat and poultry (poultry livers are kashered as beef livers) are soaked and salted.

Especially nowadays when we buy our meat and poultry, all kashered, cut and frequently frozen, ready for cooking, or even cooked and ready to eat, many people are unaware that liver demands special care. I've been married almost forty years, and I only kashered liver once. We buy chopped liver ready-made, and that's a rare week.

Liver is sold frozen next to all the other meat parts, which are already kashered. So I wonder if all the consumers realize that they have to treat liver differently.