HaBasta — Restaurant in Tel-Aviv

Overrated and overpriced.

Was I expecting too much from the good ranking and reviews? The menu is large but simple because the dishes basically contain only what is written. Salt and pepper, straightforward, nothing fancy.

At this price level, freshness is the baseline. The dishes I tried these two days need more creativity and sophistication, not only in terms of cooking methods, seasoning, and balance, but also aesthetics.

Taking into consideration the portion, I feel the place resembles more an pricy Izakaya or pub than restaurant. (Well, maybe I am the only one seriously focusing on food here… others, chatting with friends, drinking wine. Maybe this place should not be included in restaurant rankings.)

The positioning is odd. “Basta” means market food stall in Arabic, but this place has neither the market flavors or market prices.

I don’t see much advantage in comparison with higher-end restaurants with better food and environment or many other high quality restaurants and street food places in Tel Aviv.

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Service is attentive. Good music. —

[Beef "Shish"] 🥩 Tiny. Tasty with salt. Pity that the last piece is quite difficult to chew. If you have to include a less satisfying cut, better arrange it toward the beginning. Do NOT let a shish end on a sad note.

[Eggplant and Tulum] 🍆

The roasted eggplant is soft. It can be easily broken apart with the fork add melts in the mouth. The Tulum cheese has a savory and creamy flavor. The simple lemon juice dressing adds a refreshing sourness.

Nothing special at this price level but tastes good.

[Octopus on coal] 🐙

The octopus is perfect. The tentacles are slightly scorched and crispy, while the flesh remains plump and tender. It is slightly bouncier and hence probably fresher and/or grilled for a shorter time with than the one I had elsewhere two days before. Again, simple salt seasoning works well for fresh produces. As such, I have to point out that the plain yoghurt base/dressing is unnecessary here. It complicates the flavors and distracts attention from the main ingredients, sometimes even giving an overpowering fatty taste.

[Beet Root of Cured Fish] 🥗

This dish slightly improved my impression of the restaurant. The cured fish is uncooked, fresh, and bouncy, which I like.

Though the cured fish itself wasn’t noticeably seasoned, it absorbs the bright, sweet, and refreshing flavors of the beet roots. Will taste better with a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds.

[Pork Neck] 🐷

I decided to see how the Israeli kitchen handle pork. Here they treated it like a piece of steak. Admittedly, the pork neck steak was well-seared. The crust is browned and slightly crispy, and the flesh is slightly pink, tender, and juicy—even though pork requires a higher temperature at above 63 degrees to kill bacteria and parasites.

The black pepper sauce is quite ordinary, tastes British. The lettuce leaves with balsamic dressing make the chunk of meat easier to digest.

The dish demonstrates some skills, but cooking pork as if it is beef would be hard to go beyond the tastes of a good piece of steak. The method (what about braising or barbecuing or making into a katsu) and seasoning (what about local flavors such as za’atar and amba) lack creativity.

[Mango Malabi] 🍮

Dessert was good. As expected, but what else...

This has been an unfortunate experience. I've been excited to go to the Basta for a while. been hearing about their Crab Burekas and simple great food for a long time. I'll start by saying, I love restaurants that style. simple. outside the market. when I was reading the menu I saw take offs to some traditional dishes. I ordered 19 dishes (and of course had the waiter told me I over ordered - but I hear that ALL the time). Dishes are pretty big but we managed.

I'll start with the Sashimi, it was the first dish we received and it was simple and accurate. wasn't anything special. I would avoid ALL the small plates as they were nothing interesting and mostly bad to be honest.

the steak tartare which I didn't plan on ordering was actually one of the best dishes of the night. the toast it was on was hot and the meat was phenomenal. the crab carpaccio was ok. not bad but not good. I ordered all 3 pasta dishes on the menu and all were good. accurate and perfectly cooked. here as well, nothing blew my mind. was good but nothing more. we continued and got the Crab burekas (the iconic dish of the Basta) - it was the best dish of the night no doubt. though, even that, wasn't exceptional. it was good don't get me wrong. but I didn't fall off my chair. the meat we ordered was ok but the gratin it came with was great! then came the octopus which I must say, I love octopus and the Basta does do one of the best I've ever had worldwide! still waiting on 2 more dishes, the tortellini and the brain. 40 min past and we finally received the tortellini. not frustrated yet, but come one... 40 min between dishes? another 40 min past and we still didn't get the brain we've ordered! it ended up taking almost an hr between the tortellini and the brain (which I asked to be served together) which is almost 2 hours from the last dish we've had which was the octopus. it was ridiculous. and the kitchen simply did not care as much as we asked, they kept saying 2 more min.

I ordered all the desserts when I arrived just to make sure they've got them when we finish our dinner. towards the end of our dinner, after we've waited for the last 2 dishes. the waiter comes over and says that one of the desserts we've ordered is sold out even though he made to sure to put one aside. I was shocked and his response was - it happens here a lot. well, thats comforting! when we did get all the desserts beside that ice cream that was sold out, they were meh... better off finishing our dinner and heading elsewhere for sweets. unfortunately, not the food nor the experience would make me go back.

*I’ll add and say that our waiter was really sweet and welcoming. He wasn’t the problem. But it seemed like the kitchen simply...

The small amount of food I had was good at this restaurant but the service is beyond horrible. We asked for tap water for the table. They came around and filled a few small glasses. Soon my glass was empty. I asked the waiter for more water and he refilled my glass, but it was very small and I was very thirsty so I asked if he could leave the water pitcher on the table. He said no, they do not do that. I asked why not. He said they only have three pitchers so they might need them for other customers. We were eating lunch late at 4 pm and there was only one other customer at a table. I said if they need the pitchers for others fine, but at the moment they clearly don't so let us have the pitcher at the table. The waiter grudgingly agreed. A few minutes later another waiter (who was actually the manager as we later learned) came by, refilled my glass and took the pitcher back. I again finished my water and was sitting with an empty glass with no waiter coming to refill. So I went and took the pitcher myself at which point the first waiter came back and said he was sorry but the manager doesn't allow this and he's watching. I asked to speak to the manager. He came over and insisted we could not have the water pitcher at our table because they only have three and might need them for other tables. I repeated that there was no one else in need of the pitcher at the moment and why couldn't we have it. He said we don't do that. I asked why not and he refused to give me a reasonable answer. I asked if he ever heard that the customer is always right. He said yes but...and didn't finish. He wouldn't budge. We left the restaurant at that point. The manager was irrational and clearly couldn't care less about giving customers a good experience. ...