Public Service Announcement: If you, like me, have been struggling to take off a few pounds gained during the pandemic, I suggest you stop reading this review right now. Really. Just put the paper down and walk away!
If you’re still here, then continue reading at your own risk. I have been really good on my diet in the past few weeks, but Waffle Factory made me throw it all out the window. There were two reasons.
First, my soldier son came home for his first “regila,” or week-long vacation since he started in the army seven months ago, and the first thing he said was, “I’m really in the mood for a fancy waffle with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Do you think you could get me one?” What mother would say no?
Second was my journalistic curiosity. While some foods like pizza, sandwiches or hamburgers lend themselves to take-away and delivery, how could a waffle be delivered? Would it be a gloppy mushy mess by the time it reached me?
So in the interest of investigative journalism and to make my son happy, (not necessarily in that order), I ordered a delivery from Waffle Factory, asking Chef Asaf Dahan to choose my waffle for me.
Waffle Factory has a full menu of salads, pastas, foccacias, pizza and other dishes you can order before the main event of the waffles. The chef sent me an order of “Baby Cheese,” hand-made fried cheese sticks stuffed either with cheese or pizza (NIS 38). They are gooey and delicious and came with two sauces for dipping. They reminded me of mozzarella sticks served in bars in the US.
The waffle was packed by itself in a flat white box that somehow kept it from getting soggy, and came with all of the extras packed separately in small plastic containers that were well-sealed and did not leak at all. There was fresh whipped cream, a heavenly dulce du leche, and chocolate sauce as well as an array of cookies including lotus and Oreos and even coconut balls. It made quite an impressive array laid out on my kitchen table.
The packaging said we had received a “Self-Built Waffle” (NIS 44), which comes with two types of cream, two spreads and three toppings. There was also an Alfachlores Mount Cake (NIS 62) based on pancakes, dulce de leche and lotus cookies, but we did some mixing and matching to make our own creations. Both the waffle and pancakes were well-made and stood the test of being covered with sauce, cookies and whipped cream without getting gloppy.
The results were simply delicious. What could be bad about a fresh waffle, whipped cream and cookies? One waffle can easily be shared between two or three people, unless one of those people is a soldier or a hungry teenager.
The portions of sauces and whipped cream are very generous, which left us with enough to make ice cream sundaes on a different night. Pure decadence and worth every calorie.
There is also a good deal of a meal for four people (NIS 249) that includes an appetizer, focaccia, roll (a tortilla rolled with various fillings), pasta, salad and a dessert.
Waffle Factory
Emek Refaim 2
Kashrut: Rabbanut Jerusalem
Hours: Sunday-Thursday 11:30 a.m.11 p.m.; Friday: Closed; Saturday: One hour after end of Shabbat-11 p.m.
Telephone: *6643
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.