MINATO Take Away

October 2020
Enough is enough!
We have been eating my repertoire of homemade foods for months! We miss the exotic foods that we enjoyed so much at our restaurants.

The only way to eat restaurant foods during the lock down is by ordering take away. This is much safer than eating in a restaurant, but will take away truly satisfy that itch for a good restaurant?

We decided to give it a try and order take away from Minato, one of our favorite restaurants in Herzlia. Take away foods from Minato is not a burger on a bun. It is real gourmet food, packed to eat out of the restaurant.

Minato delivers to Herzlia and the environs, and to Raanana once a day, at 1:30pm. So if you live in Raanana prepare for a late lunch.

There is a 200 shekel minimum order, and an additional 20 shekel delivery charge. We also gave the delivery person a small tip.

Check out the menu and place your order by phone a few hours before the delivery. The menus are on the restaurant website in Hebrew and English. http://minato.co.il/

Every dish on the menu can be ordered for take away.
Note: Minato honors the eLuna 10% discount coupon on the dinner menu. You must tell them in advance, before they charge your card.


Our Take Away Order:
We decided to order one business lunch each, which seemed the most economical option because your main course comes with two side dishes.  But since main courses are under 100 shekels, the hardest part of making our order was adding up to the 200-shekel minimum.

For our two main dishes we chose:

1, YAKI ZAKANA DON Bowl of rice with flame-grilled salmon or sea bream 93 NIS

2. HIROKO 8 pieces i/o fish tempura with avocado, red onion, cucumber and spicy mayonnaise 8 pieces i/o tempura-coated spinach/asparagus/snow peas (in season) with mayonnaise79 NIS

The 2 business lunches came with 4 side dishes and we chose:

HARUSAME SALAD (V) EGGPLANT IN UDON BROTH STEAMED RICE JAPANESE GREEN SALAD

We were short 30 shekels for the minimum order, so we added:

COLD NOODLE SALAD (VO) Soba noodles served on a bed of mixed salad greens with tamago strips, cucumber, tomato, diced tofu and wakame seaweed with a mildly sweet sesame sauce 63 NIS

Then the clever person at the restaurant talked us into the special sushi, only on the evening menu
.
HARAJUKU Panko-coated salmon tataki and asparagus with onion ponzu on top and wasabi mayonnaise 79 NIS

The Delivery:
At 1:30 sharp the phone rang and the delivery person, wearing a mask,  was downstairs. The foods were beautifully arranged in covered plastic dishes, all packed nicely in a large Minato bag. The packaging was clean, aesthetic and inviting.

The package included a large number of sauces, mayonnaise, and wasabi, as well as chopsticks, napkins, towelettes, and 2 spoons. We ate at home but the package contained everything you would need to make it a picnic lunch.

How did take away shape up to eating at the restaurant?

Not exactly. The foods were at room temperature rather than hot from the oven and you don’t get the beautiful presentation that you get at the restaurant. But the exotic Minato flavors were delicious.

I cannot recommend the YAKI ZAKANA DON highly enough. It was a whole meal in a container, with fish, vegetables, rice, and a delicious sauce. It was a big portion that my partner and I shared. The fish was crispy and tasted like it just came off the grill. It is not exactly like eating at the restaurant, but it is a close second.

The HARAJUKU Panko-coated salmon tataki is the most popular dish at Minato, and I could not wait to taste it. The sushi was delicious, that deserves its reputation. This dish, together with the fish main dish, were a very nice shared lunch for two.

The order contained way too much food for us to eat at one sitting, so some went into the frig and other containers are on the counter waiting for our next meal.

Confession: We figured that the order would contain much more food than we could eat at one time, so we made our order on Thursday so that we could enjoy some of the left overs and the cold salads on shabbat.