Making a meal of it Michael Deacon at Bala Baya in London

This week, Michael Deacon gets a taste of Tel Aviv. Photographs by Mark Whitfield

It’s such a cliché, isn’t it: newspaper columnists droning on about giving up alcohol in January. So instead, I’m going to drone on about giving up alcohol in February. I’ve stopped drinking. I don’t know how long for. I do love going to all these restaurants, but I was starting to get flabby and heavy. I both felt and looked like a bin bag filled with clay. I needed to live a bit more healthily. And since I couldn’t very well write 1,000 words a week about steamed broccoli, I decided to stick with the rich food but cut out the booze.

The results have been good and bad. On the one hand, I feel lighter. My face is less pouchy. My body less closely resembles a teetering stack of suet puddings. And it wasn’t particularly difficult to do. The test is the first two weeks. Once you’ve gone two weeks without drinking, you find you’ve lost any craving for it.

On the other hand, though, it’s a pain in the neck for anyone I take out to dinner. For the entire two hours, I’m on nothing but sparkling water. Which means that the person I’m with

Put anything that sounds disgusting on a menu and I will, in the noble pursuit of copy, try it. It was for this reason that I ordered ‘Of fal & Pearls’

has the following choice: a) drink nothing but sparkling water themselves, and spend the whole time glaring in silent, sober resentment at the couple swigging merrily away on the next table; or b) order booze, and feel like a desperate alcoholic for drinking alone.

I, meanwhile, am imprisoned in the neurotic s elf- consciousness of the newly s ober. Questions gnaw like rats at a rope. Am I laughing less than normal? Is my friend laughing less than normal? Did drinking make me more entertaining company? Or did it just make me imagine I was more entertaining company? Has not drinking made me boring? Or has it just made me bored? And is worrying that I’m being boring making me even more boring?

God, it’s a drag. Frankly, it makes me want a drink. Except I can’t have a drink because I’ve said I’m not drinking. And if I have a drink after saying I’m not drinking, I’ll look as if I’ve got a drink problem. Never give up booze. It’s very bad for you. Still, it wasn’t too bad this week, because the friend I went with couldn’t give two hoots about my tedious neuroses, and cheerfully knocked back the cocktails on my behalf.

The restaurant we went to was Bala Baya, an Israeli place that opened recently in London. Its chef, Eran Tibi, describes it as his ‘poem to Tel Aviv’. Sadly, I’ve never been to Tel Aviv, but my friend has. Her favourite memory from her visit is of attending a Lady Gaga concert, ‘with every gay person in the Middle East going bonkers in the front row’. (Well, possibly not every gay person in the Middle East, but then in other parts it tends to be ever so slightly harder to come out of the closet.)

Anyway, if you haven’t been to Tel Aviv, Bala Baya may at first seem mildly incongruous. On the one hand, all manner of sleek, elegant, low-lit furnishings and fittings; on the other, pumping party music. To look at the place, you might expect any music to be quiet and low-key, but no, it’s loud and driving and remorselessly upbeat. This isn’t background music. This is foreground music.

Possibly not ideal if you’re looking for hushed romantic intimacy, but if you want somewhere lively and busy, Bala Baya is certainly those things. The food, as so often these days, comes from a sharing menu, with each dish brought out as soon as it’s ready.

First, a creamy hummus topped with braised oxtail, served with a pitta bread as thick as a hot-water bottle. Then came stuffed peppers with citrus yogurt, cherries and smoked freekeh. (Freekeh is a type of grain popular in Middle Eastern recipes, rather than, as you might assume from its name, a long-lost Prince demo.) The peppers tasted tart and sour. Imagine biting into a sulky teenage jellyfish.

I liked the ‘Crispy, Sticky, Crunchy’, as the menu called it: fried chicken, bitter orange, butternut squash, kimchi and harissa (a chilli paste). It was everything it promised to be, not to mention addictive. Essentially, posh KFC.

Put anything that sounds disgusting on a menu and I will, in the noble pursuit of copy, try it. It was for this reason that I ordered ‘Offal & Pearls’ – the principal ingredient of which was listed as ‘calf ’s brain’.

‘Calf ’s brain!’ beamed the waitress. ‘You’re going to be more clever after this!’

Clever enough not to order calf ’s brain again, I hope. It was a pallid, squidgy mush, tasting of lukewarm frogspawn.

Still, there were always the puddings to look forward to. I must admit, though, I wasn’t thrilled with either of them. I loved the sound of the ‘ Tahini, Banana, Tonka, Pistachio Cheesecake’ – that ’s tonka as in the bean, rather than the truck – but it tasted drier and less sweet than a normal cheesecake. And I found the ‘Burnt Babka’ – a type of Jewish cake – sluggish and doughy.

Cow brains aside, I’m not saying I didn’t like the food at Bala Baya. It was all right, sometimes good. I just wasn’t blown away by it.

Sometimes, of course, after you’ve had a few drinks, reasonable food starts to taste like great food. That mysterious alchemy, sadly, is not performed by sparkling water.

Freekeh is a type of grain popular in Middle Eastern recipes, rather than, as you might assume from its name, a long-lost Prince demo

Clockwise from top left ‘Chickpea & Ox’ at Bala Baya; stuffed peppers, served with citrus yogur t, cherries and smoked freekeh; the restaurant’s ‘Tahini, Banana, Tonka, Pistachio Cheesecake’