Gohar Restaurant Take Away

October 2020
Gohar is a lunch restaurant in the Kfar Saba Industrial area. The restaurant offers unique authentic Persian Jewish cuisine. In addition to the Persian dishes, the Gohar menus includes a variety of smoked meats and slow cooked meats.

Yisrael has been running this restaurant forever. He is behind the counter, out in front, making sure that everyone enjoys their food. One great way to enjoy Gohar cuisine is to order take away to add to your Shabbat meal.

Gohar Take Away
Gohar offers fixed menus for delivery. We chose menu #2: Table for 2, from the Shabbat specials menu: NIS 250 + NIS 30 delivery to Raanana. We placed our order for Shabbat on Wednesday, by phone, paid with BIT and we were good to go. Gohar uses a taxi delivery service. The cost depends on your location.

Mid Friday morning the taxi driver called and our order was delivered to our home. Each individual container was wrapped in plastic film and the entire order was wrapped in one piece. Try getting that tower into the refrigerator! We carefully unwrapped the tower, and put each of the individually wrapped containers into the frig.

We were overwhelmed by the amount of food in this order, The menu must be for two very hungry people sitting down at one generous meal. There was far more food than what we expected. In addition to the foods on the menu, The restaurant generously added a few surprises. The 250 shekels that we paid, was very little, considering what we got.

The menu is not organized into courses. I guess that when you eat in the restaurant, they fill the table with a large array of everything you have ordered, for everyone to dig in. Our plan, however was to make two shabbat meals out of all of this largesse, so we went about sorting the food into meals, At that point we realized that we could easily invite another couple for at least one of those meals. We certainly would have done that in better times, but entertaining will have to wait till after Corona.

The main dishes were roasted and smoked chicken and lightly smoked roasted goose shanks, each in its own container. The container with the half chicken came with its own sides: roasted white potatoes and roasted sweet potatoes, and a surprise of two mild house chorizo sausages. This container alone could be a main dish for two.

Menus Select the menu and order by phone
Meal # 1: Table for 4 • Smoked chicken (1 piece) + vegetables • Hot dogs (4 pcs) • Smoked goose on a bed of orange sauce (2 pcs) • Gundi / fillet schnitzel (4 pcs) (1 liter) • House Chimichurri Sauce • Persian Rice (1 Liter) Price: 349 NIS ₪
Meal # 2: Carnivore for 4 • Smoked Asado from the smokehouse (1 kg) • Jerusalem mix Meurav (0.5 kg) • Chorizo ​​sausages (4 pieces) • Smoky goose on an orange bed (2 pcs) • Go Nadi (4 pieces) / fillet schnitzel (box 1 L) • House chimichurri sauce • Persian Rice (1 Liter) Price: 465 NIS ₪

Another surprise, was a small container of stuffed grape leaves. The order from a Persian restaurant such as Gohar would not be complete without this ubiquitous dish. I am generally not a fan of stuffed grape leaves but this was unusually good.

The two goose shanks were easily a lunch meal for two the next day. The shanks are large, with plenty of dark meat on each, soft, with a faintly smoky flavor. I like goose a lot, especially as a change from chicken.

The side for the shanks was apparently the liter container of rice, but actually the rice can be added to either of these meals, and is more than enough. This is not plain white rice as one would think looking at the menu. The rice is yellow, perhaps due to a mild saffron garnish, with a crispy coating and potato slices on top. This gives it a crispy crust, while soft underneath. This dish is very different from plain white basmati rice and is a very unique and ethnic dish.  

The order comes with a container of chimichurri, a zingy condiment that goes well with all the dishes, but I used it mostly on the potatoes. Because it is a generous amount you can afford to put it on everything.

In addition to these dishes, the order included a large pastel (pie), of filo dough filled with a generous portion of smoked Asado meat and vegetables. This is a very professional looking dish, that would be excellent with a shot of whiskey for a meaty kiddush before the Shabbat meal.

Shabbat Specials Select the menu and order by phone
Meal # 1: Table for 2 • Pastry filled with a variety of flavors • Grilled chicken breast (pargiot) fried eggplant and tomatoes • Smoked pastrami, fried eggplant and tomatoes • Smoked beef breast / Asado, fried eggplant and tomatoes Price: NIS 139 ₪
Meal # 2: Table for 2 • Pastry filled with asado, fried eggplant and tomatoes. • Half chicken lightly smoked with smoked vegetables. • Delicately smoked goose shank (2 pcs). on a bed of vegetables and white wine • Persian rice (1 liter) • House chimichurri sauce Price: NIS 250 ₪
Meal # 3: Table for 4 • Smoked chicken with smoked vegetables • House sausages (4 pcs). • Delicate smoked goose shank on a bed of oranges (2 pcs). • Pastry stuffed with asado, fried eggplant and tomatoes (1 piece). • Persian Rice (1 liter) • House chimichurri sauce Price: NIS 349 ₪