Naya - Asian Fusion in Style

Admin
Feb 24, 2019
2 min read

It's been awhile. I know. Living in Jerusalem, but working in Herzylia has severely limited my ability to both go out to eat - and have the energy to blog about it afterwards...

I'm back!! Back working in Jerusalem. Back eating in Jerusalem. And, back writing about it!

So to start off, my family and I decided to go to Naya - in Beit Nekofa. Just off the roundabout at the Harel junction between Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh on Rt. 1.

Naya is a beautiful building. Large enough to accommodate a large number of guests and spacious enough to afford privacy for each table. Well, not privacy - but the room, albeit full, was quiet enough that we could hold a conversation without having to shout to be heard. This, in and of itself, is a trick that many other Jerusalem eateries should learn.

We started our meal with a drink. Saki for the table, and a wasabi margarita for me. I'm not a huge margarita fan; but I was intrigued to see if the bartender could successfully incorporate the wasabi without overpowering the drink. On one hand, it was overly sweet - but it did have the distinctive bite of wasabi - just not the flavor. I asked if the wasabi was from the root or from a powder - and, unfortunately, learned that it was not freshly grated from a root...

This was one of the few missteps of this meal.

We ordered both spring rolls and sticky chicken wings as appetizers. While expensive, both appetizers were very good. The spring rolls were not overly greasy as you find in other restaurants. However, they did offer the standard purplish-red sweet and sour sauce - but we were in no way required to use it! :-)

The wings were delightful! Sticky, salty, sweet and spicy. We ripped right through these.

Our main dishes included general tso chicken, szezhuan beef, pad kra pao and a green curry. In four separate dishes, Naya managed to enable us to well cover gastronomical highlights from all over Asia. All dishes were well made, wonderfully seasoned and generous in the size of portions. The only complaint was from my 22 year-old son who would have liked more chicken in his general tso.

I wish that I could have tried some of the sushi dishes - but I guess that will have to wait for our next visit...

For dessert, we ordered the chocolate souffle with caramelized bananas. Standard souffle and not enough bananas. I think that they could have done a better job here as well.

I must say a few words about the service. All waitstaff was attentive, helpful, informative, knowledgeable and truly made this meal special. They offered insights on the dishes, recommended we request the appetizers be fired before the mains (apparently, this is not a given, and you need to ask otherwise everything arrives together); and followed up both with the barman and the chef regarding ingredients that they were unsure of. This should be the standard for service in Israel. Unfortunately, it often is not.

Additionally, the manager stopped by our table - just to introduce himself and ask how we were enjoying our meal.