Once you get Ari Miller started on stories about his time in Israel, there’s no end to the craziness he can recount. Last Saturday, as he and his partner, Gary Burner, prepared  six modern and delicious takes on classic Israeli food, he passed the time with stories while we enjoyed our fill of creations from Food Underground.

Our evening began with Marc de Galilee, a three-year oak barrel aged brandy that won a silver medal in the 2015 Berlin International Spirits Competition. According to Ari, consider it the Israeli version of grappa. A quick cheers, and we were ready to dig in.

For the first bite, Ari plated a pretzel bite, topped with grilled halloumi, pepperoni from Kensington Quarters, and a tomato za’atar relish. He explained that he had ended up working in a kitchen after his time as the Dining Editor for the Jerusalem Post, and there he baked soft pretzels among other things. The pretzel came with him when he moved to a bar called the Minzar, and now had come to us.

Next up: watermelon topped with schug, a Yemenite hot paste traditionally made with parsley and hot peppers. Onto the schug went a raw shrimp and tobiko, a nod from Ari to Israel’s plentiful seafood, and to go with it, a limonana sauce, reminiscent of the lemon and mint drink that is common Israeli street food (and made available to Philadelphians at Zahav!).

Third course: roasted and stuffed long hot pepper (seeds removed, thankfully), filled with feta, and plated with a purslane and walnut salad, topped with fresh sardines.

Then, a play on the classic sabich sandwich; traditionally wrapped in pita with tehina or hummus, hard boiled eggs, and fried eggplant, Ari and Gary reimagined the sandwich as a plated course. They started with an amba tehina, a Middle Eastern condiment made from pickled mangos, and topped it with eggplant wrapped around green onions and then grilled, a’la the Japanese street food gyuniku. Ari and Gary added a egg hard boiled in tea, a take on what we know as Israeli salad (but is called Arabic salad in Israel!), and crispy potatoes to finish the plate.

Our last savory course was the dish most commonly associated with Israeli food: hummus. Ari thought he knew the proper way to make it until he was told that proper hummus does not have olive oil in it, but on it. Here, he made green hummus, adding in parsley and dandelion. The hummus served as the base for a rosemary skewer of chicken hearts and grapes, grilled, and bits of lamb fat, and was served with fresh laffa. Seconds of the hummus made rounds throughout the table.

To finish the meal, Ari and Gary did a tea cake inspired by one Ari had eaten in the past. This one he reinvented to resemble “Tel Aviv Nights”: matcha green tea was used in the cake, and it was topped with jasmine cream and pistachios.

Israel may have been full of adventures for Ari, but after a meal like this one, we can’t help but be glad he’s in Philly. A big thanks to Ari and Gary of Food Underground, and for the beautiful stone plates interspersed throughout the meal, another round of thanks to Felt and Fat.