Anna and Ilja in Israel

This is a lazy post, just a slideshow of the pictures with some text, but it is post.

Israel: restaurants and food

This is actually a post based on two trips. My first trip was at the beginning of September. This was a business trip to The ICT Counter Terrorism Conference. The second trip was at the end of September together with Anna to visit Adina and Dan's wedding and of course to enjoy a nice week of vacation in the Holy Land. This post has two parts: first some restaurants and finally some night clubs.

The Old Man and the Ocean is a fish restaurant in old Jaffa. It's an Arab restaurant filled with Israelis enjoying good food for a low price. I've been three times to this place and every time the food was good and the atmosphere typical fast Arab: sit down, you get the 20 salads (meze like) including humus and falafel, a guy comes up to take your order and before you know it, there is a giant fish waiting on you plate. They serve a very sweet but nice lemonade with the food. The last time was somewhat different though, although it had nothing to do with the food. When we took a taxi from the Sheraton Moriah (shitty hotel, better go for the Sheraton Tel Aviv which is $20 more, but triple the value), we asked the driver if he knew the place. He said yes, but immediately stopped the car to ask his colleagues at the hotel who gave him some directions. Then we took off and at 30 Shekkel on the meter I asked him if he knew where we were going, and he said, yeah sure. However, we ended up on the top of the modern tourist part of Jaffa. After some talk and talk, we finally decided to leave the car, since he apparently had no clue where the restaurant was located. However, after we left the car he came after us and demanded money, so much that we attracted the attention of the police. But after explaining the situation, they send him away. Walking around in Jaffa, we waited and waited for a taxi until Tel Aviv’s most shabby cab driver showed up who knew exactly where the restaurant was and who charged us 25 Shekkels for the 5 minute drive (roughly triple of what it should cost) however, we had reached our destination!

Benny the Fisherman is a fish restaurant located in Tel Aviv’s old Port and is a restaurant just like the Old Man and the Ocean, but more oriented at tourists, fancy and double the price. The food was good, but without an Israeli with you, they may try to rip you off. My first visit with Dana was just fine but with Anna, they doubled the prices of the fish.

Diana (Tel 077-5156168/04-6464343) is supposed to be one of Nazareth’s best restaurants. When Susan and I arrived in Nazareth, we just could not find it. Eventually, a friendly man told us that the restaurant had moved and showed us how to get there: he got in the backseat of our car, brought us to our destination and left….just a very nice guy indeed. The restaurant is indeed nice, falafel with sesame around it, very tender lamb and an excellent wine list. The second time I visited the place with Anna and instead of sitting in the nice garden (which was too cold at the beginning of October) we sat in the restaurant where they used the airco like it was still the middle of the summer. Probably better to eat here in the summer.

Tapas and Tel Aviv makes a great combination. Anna and I visited two: Tapeo and Champa. Tapeo is a more popular upscale restaurant. The tapas look beautiful and taste great! One guy makes the cold tapas behind the bar. Champa is a rather new place with no tables and no wine list: they only serve Cava, the Spanish bubbly wine. However, the Cava they serve is good and cheap (50 shekkel a bottle which is around 10 Euros) and the simple tapas taste great! Just a pity that the Cava is so good in finding a short cut to your head, doesn’t it Anna? ;-)

Tel Aviv nightlife

Tel Aviv has a great night life scene. Getting in is easy for a foreigner (so it seems). With both Susan at the beginning of September and with Anna at the end of September, it was a piece of cake to get into a club. Just say hi to the selector and she would waive us through.None of the clubs charged any entrance fees. Drinks were between 40 and 50 Shekkels for a mix (GT or wodka red bull)

The first club for me to visit in Israel was the Clara a.k.a. Fashion Club. It’s located opposite to the XXX hotel in the direction of Jaffa, next to the dolfinarium. First floor has a mix of club house and ‘90s remixed while the 2nd floor is a rooftop club with more relaxed house. The view over the sea is great. Crowd is somewhat younger and the guys are a little more trained and into tight outfits than in the rest of Tel Aviv. Too bad the club closes at the end of September for the winter.

Zizzi Tripo is an excellent club in the basement of 7 Karlibach St. Club house is the music and the crowd is 25-35, so I felt right at home :-). Below a compilation of three short clips I shot with my wonderfull Nokia N95 8Gb.

Apartment 98 (98 Dizengoff St., second floor.) is a nice place, but we ended up here when the party was apparently at its end. The place is really a club in an apartment building. Nice touch is the Mini Cooper they’ve built in the place. To get to the second floor, you have to use an old and crampy lift.

Uptown (old port) turned out to be my favorite. The hardest to get in, not the best music (house mixed with popular, 80/90s and some Israeli music) and clearly regular DJs (the second Saturday, the mix really resembled the first when I heard Cela Cela again) it did have a great atmosphere with a large outside area. Below a short phone movie shot at September 12th 2008.