I don’t usually think of Sde Yoav as a culinary destination. For those of you who don’t know where it is (I didn’t know either until I went there recently), it is between Ashkelon and Kiryat Gat. Armonim is the restaurant of Dream Island Spa and Health Resort, itself a fun place to visit, with a boutique hotel and a series of indoor and outdoor pools.
Armonim is a meat chef restaurant with interesting takes on classic Israeli dishes. But before we get to the food, let’s talk about the design of the restaurant. It is very large, and I loved the design with big white trees and ceiling lights. As soon as I entered, I knew this was a place I wanted to be in.
There is some type of entertainment every night. On the night I visited with my favorite husband, there was a DJ. It was a little loud for me (“If this is too loud, you’re too old”) and we thought about moving to the enclosed porch, but we decided to just move a little farther from the music so we could enjoy the design of the restaurant. There was an 80th birthday going on in one of the private rooms that looked like a lot of fun.
The Dream Island Hotel has 26 rooms, meaning only 52 guests when the hotel is fully booked. The restaurant has room for another 150 guests who come, according to manager Geva Ben Moshe, from all over the country, even from the culinary mecca of Tel Aviv.
Ben Moshe obviously loves his job and seemed to be all over the restaurant at once, making sure that everyone was having a good experience. Our waitress, Roni, was lovely, seeming to really care what we thought about the food, and lighting up when I told her how much we enjoyed it.
I started with a vodka-based cocktail served in a tall glass that had passion fruit, pineapple, and other yummy stuff. My husband, Cliff, had a watermelon mojito, which was good, but I definitely won the cocktail battle.
Vegan options on offer
The menu is not large. There are nine starters and seven main courses, in addition to daily specials, but everyone can find something (even the vegans among you). Ben Moshe encouraged us to try several appetizers, which we did. The most interesting was the veal baklava (NIS 68) with tehina, silan, and coconut cream.
The Italian bread (NIS 28) was freshly baked with salt and rosemary, and it took all my willpower not to eat too much of it and get full. Another interesting starter was the beet cappelletti (NIS 78), which was ring-shaped pasta in a mushroom ragout.
For the main course, I couldn’t resist the aged entrecôte (NIS 169), which was reasonably priced for a 300-gram excellent steak cooked over coals and served with garlic confit. My favorite husband went with the salmon filet Niçoise (NIS 128) with pickled lemon and harissa, grilled in a tabun oven.
I was too full for dessert, but Cliff soldiered on with a rotundo (NIS 52) with layers of caramel and toffee and crunchy stuff. We began the journey back to Jerusalem very full, and happy to have had an excellent meal.
Armonim
Dream Island
Sde Yoav (between Ashkelon and Kiryat Gat)
Phone: 077-729-9385
Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Kashrut: Rabbanut Nahal Sorek
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.
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