- [Einat] When I opened Bolonat,
it was the idea to have Israeli food.
I know this food, I grew up with this. I cook.
I came from a family that always cooked,
that know spices.
Israeli food is not necessarily hummus and baba ghanoush.
Israeli food is so much more.
I think what got me into cooking
is hearing somebody's hungry.
And it doesn't matter who it was.
I would start cooking.
I remember the first few years even,
with marriage to my husband,
and he used to come home at 2am, and he said,
"Oh, I'm starving."
I would, like, start preparing something.
Just a really great opportunity to show love
to people around me.
(food sizzling)
Israeli food is bright, is vegetable-forward.
We cook vegetables in very different ways
than anyone else.
Every time I'm talking to, especially an American,
it's totally different for them.
They grew up with the boiled cauliflower
that smell like fart.
It's true: It smelled like fart.
I think this is all kind of, like,
treating vegetables a little bit different.
We don't use much butter and cream.
It's all about olive oil, it's a little bit healthier.
We use tons of herbs and everything.
A lot of nuts.
So I think this all kind of a combination
make Israeli food a little bit more appealing.
And it's delicious.
I have, here, a cauliflower that is with Bamba --
one of my favorite snacks.
And Bamba contains rice and peanuts.
So I took the cauliflower and did a rice flour batter,
fry it crispy.
I just layer the peanut tahini on the bottom of the slate.
I'm just gonna put in a lot of cauliflower,
put a little bit more tahini on top
and then sliced, chopped Bamba all around,
and finished with some greens.
I have a lot of acid in my food.
I think that's the Middle East and Israeli.
We have lemon on a lot of things.
If a fish don't have enough acid,
it's kind of lack of excitement for me.
We do the ceviche with, some lime on the fluke
but also the sauce itself and broth on the bottom, is acid.
The ceviche have fresh fluke, some red onion,
some chili, of course,
a gooseberry sauce with pineapple,
and then on top, we just take kataif,
and we fry it in big pieces,
and we finish it with some sumac,
and that's a beautiful, crispy texture to the fluke.
That's one of the things that I personally like,
is to have some surprise in texture.
Israeli breakfast is one of the most common things.
I think breakfast is one of our important meals.
Every cafeteria or restaurant cafe have Israeli breakfast.
It will be two eggs, and it will be a chopped salad,
and then you have always fresh bread.
It's like warm bread.
I like it that we give the Israeli breakfast
only on brunch, and it's Shabbat -- it's Saturday and Sunday.
And a warm, fresh challah.
It's a great challah, it has a sweetness inside,
and it's going well with all the condiments.
It's almost like antipasti, in a way,
in a different way.
There is gonna be usually feta, some labneh,
could be some marinated olives,
could be sun-dried tomato paste or roasted paprika.
Definitely Israeli salad and tahini -- always tahini.
You see the rise of Israeli food trends everywhere.
I remember when I used to bring my own tahini
from Israel, people never had.
The only tahini you can find in store
was this orange can that was really bad, grainy tahini.
Ingredients like harissa -- it was very unknown.
Even in New York, such a big city,
it was very hard to find it.
Because nobody heard about these things back then.
In a way, it's great for me, you know,
I feel like... I can't say I'm a pioneer or I invented anything --
of course I didn't
but I think I'm one of the first people in New York
that actually did this food.
I think almost every dish have a story in my cooking.
And sometimes you can even feel it.
It always make sense to me,
because there is something behind it.