Alexa R.
Yelp
My family and I came to Esh for my dad's birthday. I'd definitely recommend making a reservation as far in advance as you can because they fill up early. It is immediately apparent that there's a warm and inviting ambiance with service to match it.
We started with tasty drinks and ordered our food tapas style. We had the hummus, smoked garlic eggplant, falafel basket, chopped salad, Jerusalem artichoke, and roasted sweet potato. The food took a little while to start coming out, but once it did, everything came out very quickly. The complimentary flatbread provided is INSANE. We spoke to the manager after our meal to rave about everything and he said they implement a special technology to make the bread. I'm not sure what alchemy they are doing in the kitchen, but it results in the best bread I've ever had along with other amazing food. I loved the zatar oil that came with the bread as well. My favorite bite was the bread with the delicious smoked garlic eggplant, which tasted pretty similar to babaganoush to me. My next favorite was the Jerusalem artichokes. They were crunchy on the outside while being hearty/meaty on the inside and had a flavorful sweet and spicy sauce. This was a very unique take on artichokes and it's not immediately recognizable that it's the vegetable upon sight or taste. The falafel basket was my third favorite dish. These are expertly crispy while being soft on the inside and I loved the fun square shape they came in. I also liked that it came with two types of falafel - standard and sweet potato. After that, I equally enjoyed the chopped salad and hummus. The chopped salad was very fresh so it compliments the other food well. It was well-dressed too. Next, the hummus was very good and I liked that it was topped with whole chickpeas, but I just personally prefer my hummus to have more contrasting flavor components. All of the above dishes I mentioned were great and the only dish that missed the mark for us was the sweet potatoes. With the description of "fire roasted sweet potatoes, black tahini, smoked meldon sea salt," I'd thought I would love them. However, maybe ours weren't seasoned properly, because everyone thought they basically tasted like a standard sweet potato. We ended with the fabulous Esh Silan Sundae, vanilla ice cream with shredded halva, silan (date honey), caramelized almonds, and rice puffs (like rice crispies) on the bottom. It was great! The vanilla ice cream was refreshing and high-quality and the toppings added very nice flavors and textures.
For the most part, everything we had was so special, and based on all the other incredible-looking dishes we saw coming out of the kitchen to go to other tables, you can't go wrong. The tapas we ordered were well-portioned and the entrees also looked like a very nice portion, which is much appreciated! When we left, we made a reservation for my sister's upcoming birthday! I can't wait to try other dishes, such as the spinach-feta flatbread and all the other dips, and update my review.