Balaboosta
New York
The name of this white-brick eatery means “perfect housewife” in Yiddish, said Adam Platt in New York. Israeli-born chef Einat Admony’s “idea of home-style cooking, however, is slightly different from yours and mine.” She got her training in highbrow kitchens and does “imaginative things in her kitchen.” To start, cauliflower comes crisply fried and sprinkled with pine nuts and currants. Shrimp is “wrapped in phyllo and dressed in a creamy sauce speckled with flying-fish roe.” Soup is a “cooling gazpacho,” sweetened with two types of melon—cantaloupe and honeydew—and bits of almond brittle. Among the entrées, the lamb loin is wrapped in Swiss chard and “arranged elegantly on the plate, just like at fancy restaurants uptown,” while desserts include the Malabi milk custard—an oozing, Middle Eastern version of panna cotta flavored with orange blossoms. 214 Mulberry St., (212) 966-7366
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Itz Kosher
Studio City, Calif.
The work of mother-and-son team Esther and David Adir, this Israeli-Moroccan restaurant boasts dishes that burst with “bold, well-calibrated flavors,” said Linda Burum in the Los Angeles Times. Israeli-Moroccan cuisine is not some new “fusion of food cultures.” Its roots date to Spain’s 1492 expulsion of its Jews, who carried their Sephardic culture to new refuges, including Morocco. In the 1950s a wave of Moroccan Jews immigrated to Israel, helping to shape the cuisine of that fledgling country. “Dishes such as hummus and falafel got folded into the Moroccan mix and are on the menu here.” Braised chicken legs come with olives and preserved lemon. Moroccan-style nibbles include harissa-spiced carrot salad, pickled beets, cured olives, and lemony cabbage slaw. Finally, check Esther’s chalkboard for the “surprise of the day”—these dishes change at her whim and have included a slow-cooked lamb tagine as well as bestilla, a “crisp phyllo-crusted pie of shredded chicken and its cooking juices perfumed with cinnamon.” Eating here feels like being in a little cafe in Fez. 11400 Ventura Blvd., (818) 761-2550
Traif
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Traif “generated plenty of buzz” before it opened—and not just for its practically blasphemous name, said Ligaya Mishan in The New York Times. In Yiddish, the name refers to foods forbidden under Jewish dietary law, and to “underscore the point, the front door has the logo of a cute little piggy stamped with a heart.” Safe to say that chef Jason Marcus, though Jewish, doesn’t exactly keep kosher. Still, this mostly-small-plates restaurant has a “little secret”—plenty of items on the menu are not inherently traif. Sure, Marcus serves pork belly, rock shrimp over puffy corncakes, and bacon doughnuts. But he also prepares a wonderful salad of baby spinach, oranges, grapes, roasted carrots, feta, and sunflower seeds. A shredded duck confit, bundled in lettuce leaves, is served with a banana-inflected hot-and-sour chili paste that “suits the sweetness of the duck.” It’s rare to find cooking this thoughtful and complex at such reasonable prices. Traif “is, simply, a very nice restaurant.” 229 S. Fourth St., (347) 844-9578
