Golda Prahran Dan Stock review: Double-fried Cauliflower a delicious snack

Roasted or drenched in a cheese sauce are perfectly fine ways to eat cauliflower, but its treatment at Prahran’s new Israeli restaurant is by far the best.

Over the many years I’ve been writing about all the good things to pop in your gob, I’ve gasbagged with some of the globe’s greatest culinary superstars including Nigella (exquisite), Heston (bonkers), Jamie (rad), Rick Stein (avuncular), Marco Pierre White (old-school charming) and Antonio Carluccio (endearing), but if backed into a corner I’d probably choose Yotam Ottolenghi as my favourite interviewee, if only for his extraordinary and creative ideas of how to cook, eat and transform veg.

“What’s your favourite thing to do with cauliflower?” I asked the Israeli-born, London-based cook in 2017 just as the whole roasted cauliflower trend was taking off here.

Golda’s double-fried cauliflower is worth its weight in gold. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

“One of the most delicious bits of the cauliflower is the leaves from the bottom, people chop off the leaves, but that’s such a waste,” he told me and ever since I’ve been roasting them crunchy and crisp to winning effect.

But my new favourite way to eat cauliflower today is in double-fried form, one of the must order opening snacks at Golda.

While Tel Aviv is, according to Ottolenghi, a hot spot of dynamic and exciting eateries serving modern Israeli fare, we have Adam Faigen and Rotem Papo to thank for bringing it slightly closer to home.

The duo took over what was the Cullen Hotel’s NY diner-themed Gramercy Social and opened their modern Israeli restaurant just as Melbourne went into our 111 days of winter.

They reopened as the city reawakened and have since been serving Israeli-style brunches on weekends and family-style table-filling feasting through the week.

It pays to bring a group, as there is so much you’ll want to eat.

With Middle Eastern, North African and Eastern European influences, modern Israeli fare is filled with vibrant spicing and interest in every mouthful; of simple ingredients with big personalities and an ancient history being told in today’s language with hummus as the lodestar.

The calamari at Golda. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

While there will doubtless be those with stronger opinions on the matter, I reckon the version coming out of Papo’s kitchen is a winner: textural and rich and finished with crunchy fried chickpeas and a pond of smoked paprika oil ($9).

But the baba ganoush was a real eye-opener, with elegance and balance; it’s subtle and sexy rather than powerfully punchy, its attendant spring onion and za’atar oil lifting it to real heights ($9).

Elastic Iraqi laffa bread is on tear, scoop and scoff duties ($9).

Having developed a taste for cooking during his compulsory military duties for the Israeli army, Papo moved to Melbourne a decade back cooking at L’Hotel Gitan and Bar Lourinha among others but it was a chance meeting with restaurateur Adam Faigen that now sees him put the food of his family onto plates in Prahran.

You could do worse than start with a cocktail with an on-theme twist — a pomegroni, say, or a black olive martini — and that cauliflower, for the salty spice and crunch of the fried florets teamed with creamy tahini and draped with sumac pickled onions is the perfect whetter ($12). Seafood is a highlight, whether sardines splayed, grilled and served with pickled fennel and an olive cream ($27) or gloriously tender calamari with grilled zucchini and sour cream ($33).

The brisket is meltingly soft. Picture Rebecca Michael.

And to answer the question: can cabbage ever be sexy? I present charcoal grilled savoy scattered with almonds and bursts of ruby grapefruit on a bed of bitey labne ($17), and puckeringly sharp red sauerkraut that’s the plate mate for a beer-braised “reuben-style” brisket that’s meltingly soft with a pickled chilli kick ($36).

Three plump and juicy lamb kebabs come with a terrific freekeh and green tahini sauce, a vine leaf zhug — a Yemeni hot sauce — adding a nice lick of heat ($33), and though by this stage we’re groaningly full I’m glad our terrific waitress talked us into ordering the spatchcock ($35).

Spice-brined and golden-skinned, the perfectly cooked meat comes with a dressing of kidney beans and barberries with Persian lime adding bright zing to cut through. Just wow.

The Spatchcock is perfectly cooked and “just wow”. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

A lovely little wine list leaning to the spice-right light, bright and juicy includes a couple of whites and reds from the homeland along with interest closer to home including a Goulburn Valley bogazkere, a Turkish red varietal.

Unique and accomplished, Golda offers a taste of modern Israel that’s right at home here.

I reckon Ottolenghi would approve.

Golda in Prahran. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

GOLDA

162 Commercial Road, Prahran

Open: Brunch Fri-Sun from 9am; lunch Fri-Sun from noon; dinner Tues-Sat from 6pm

goldarestaurant.com.au