Aliyah Blog 103: Interesting Restaurants in Israel

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Blind Restaurant

The article isn’t quite ready to print in black and white because I haven’t made it to the blind restaurant yet – you have to pre-pay and book months in advance, and I can’t see why that is. There’s nothing to see there anyway! I’ve been to the blind museum, which was excellent, though all these places look the same. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It’s fine though – I’d have nothing to show you anyway.

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Pitmaster Grill

Lively chefs cook the food in front of you and serve 7 courses of almost all meat. The food is amazing – top level. This makes sense because they know exactly what to order, for how many people, and the menu changes probably in part due to what is available / freshest at that time. You’re eating it right when it’s made so nothing was sitting around waiting for an order. They also give you a choice of wine, beer, water, or soda … just remember that in Israel “soda” means “seltzer”.

As an American here, at times, I felt like I was Chris Farley on a Japanese gameshow.

They have a few locations – they have a teudat kashrut though for mehadrin meat, that’s only at their location in Jerusalem. Seatings are for two hours and cost about $100/person with 10% tip.

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Gojo Ethiopian Restaurant, Rehovot

Gluten free by default.

There are about 140,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel and it seems the land was so poor that they eat grass seed. It’s called “teff“, has a grey color and tastes bitter. After eating a bunch of it, you start getting used to it. It’s paired with spicy stuff, and they have vegetarian and meat options. Across the street is an Ethiopian store which I can’t figure out … they have a few Ethiopian garments though only in the window. Inside are big sacks of legumes.

Very inexpensive. Certainly, worth a try.

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Wineries with Cheese

Wineries are all over the place. When they have attached restaurants, they have this thing about serving excellent food. Usually, it’s not too light and not too heavy and includes the best cheese you’ve tasted in your life. Some have wine tasting with cheese platters. Some have wine tasting for a bit extra on top of your meal.

The pictures are from the Tura winery and Castel winery.

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Caesarea Restaurants Near the Water

“You’ve been to a lot of places – we’re looking for a day trip with beauty and food” says the adult couple who reads my blog. Ah. I recommended Caesarea. Within the national park are a variety of restaurants, some of which are kosher of varying levels of kashrus. Some are expensive, as one would expect of a tourist area, and some aren’t that great. The best one I found is Aresto. It’s not right on the water, though more importantly, the food is great, the prices are great, and it’s “the busy” restaurant in the area despite being one of the few restaurants which isn’t very visible from the outside.

. . . the funny thing is that even if the kosher Caesarea ‘meh’ restaurants were kosher restaurants in America, I’d have thought they were good. Standards are higher here.

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Israeli Fast Food

Schwarma isn’t as popular as I remember from back in my yeshiva days – it might be a Jerusalem thing or it might be that the country has gotten healthier. For under $10 one can buy the best falafel with hummus in a pita, or … a lamb sandwich for about $13. For about the same, you can buy a fish sandwich from “Sarfati’s” with a choice of 20 different kinds of fish. Same with lunch from a supermarket.

(I finally found real permanent chopsticks in this country – there’s one kid in one store underground (meaning, “under the ground”, hidden in an industrial area and they are shocked at the idea that H-mart in America has about 200 kinds.)

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Cafes

I’ve heard that before the influx of the French, psalteries here were not so great … pareve, hard, Eastern European stuff that is known to Ashkenazim in America. Israel has some great cafes and excellent pastries – I haven’t found a good Thai restaurant (I found a bad one) or any Indian restaurants, though some of the more popular dishes can be found elsewhere … and in Israel, rice noodles are … rice. In America, they are almost always with wheat. Udon noodles are supposed to be rice!

Have to be careful though … some of the bakeries are outrageously expensive. … and when something is called a “bakery” here, it might actually be a “cafe”.

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American Fast Food

I only want it, if I can’t have it. No one who has it, wants it.

I’m told that they have a meat and a dairy side and won’t ring you up with the same order for both. I did have pineapple pizza at Pizza Hut because apparently, I selected the wrong thing at the video kiosk (they’re quite common here) and found out I really like pineapple on pizza.

If you want the best American barbeque wings of your life, there’s an American from Denver who opened a place in Tzvat.

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Elvis Diner

There’s a well-known large diner called, “Elvis” just off a highway. It’s filled with Elvis stuff, in case that wasn’t clear. It’s not kosher though it deserves a mention for one of those, shock-value-why sort of things in Israel.

He’s not the only singer with a restaurant . . .

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Lady Gaga’s Clothing Store

Not quite edible food, though there’s some cross-dress here. All we hear is radio gaga, radio goo gooo …

… as non-serious as this section is, there is something useful about it: it’s easy to find places with fresh meat, fish, fruits, breads, nuts, and so on in addition to finding large supermarkets. Specialty stores are a thing here. Retail hasn’t taken over and it’s quite nice even if you have to pay a bit more for having variety.

Recommendations

Please leave your recommendations in the comments. I’m always looking for new places to try!

Is there a good kosher Indian, Thai, Korean, Chinese (not American-style), Turkish … whatever restaurant in Israel that I should try? Where is it?

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