Israel – food
#2 of 5 – for more context see the main post
Any trip to a new place requires trying new food, of course. Mediterranean restaurants abound where I live so I was familiar with a few staples: hummus, falafel and pita bread. I found the hummus in Israel to be good overall (fresh, savory and creamy) but not a standout, though to be fair I also was not seeking out any top rated hummus places.
Falafel was ubiquitous and quite delicious (light, crispy and warm) and filling. Great “mouth feel”.
My favorite new-to-me “must try Israeli food” was shakshuka: tomatoes, peppers and spices cooked in a pan with an egg on top – a savory breakfast option that pairs well with espresso/coffee. I am not a big egg eater, but I enjoyed shakshuka at the hotel breakfast buffet several times. I should think it’d go well wrapped in a Mexican tortilla.
Work lunch options
Though the office is in a semi-industrial area (not exactly a tech hub), there were plenty of good options for lunch. I had some savory (if a tad greasy) chicken shawarma at a casual Turkish place.
An Italian restaurant named Zinc offers fresh pasta as well as a giant (thought they didn’t call it that) schnitzel. I thoroughly enjoyed how everyone said ‘schnitzel’ with a strong German accent. Side note: the best food I encountered in Peru was a crispy flattened, breaded chicken, called ‘milanesa’. Employees receive a lunch card (some sort of closed loop magnetic card), with a modest subsidy, which can be used at places like Zinc – where they even have a special company (Micro Focus) business menu.
A few food anecdotes
- portion sizes at the sit-down restaurants were quite large, apparently catching up with those in America
- prices at the fancier places were fairly close to similar places in the San Francisco bay area. A small group of us ate dinner at Sebastian in trendy/affluent Herzliya (North of Tel Aviv; sister city of Beverly Hills, CA, USA). Drinks, appetizers and entrees (but no dessert) ran about $50 USD per person.
Food and water security in a desert
While much of Israel’s land is arid desert they manage to have a strong agricultural industry via an advanced water collection and distribution system called the National Water Carrier and through the use of modern drip irrigation. The majority of food consumed locally comes from within Israel. About two-thirds of the water need comes from the salty Mediterranean Sea, processed in five huge reverse osmosis desalination plants (1). The technologies for the water system, drip irrigation and the desalination plants were all invented or refined in Israel, and the designs and methods are shared/implemented in other countries.
As both Israel and California have a Mediterranean climate (at least in parts) they are able to produce many of the same fruits and vegetables (ex: avocados, plums, strawberries, pomegranates). Israel also grows bananas in hot houses.
Not one to resist the (chemically provided) flavors of home in a new place, I stopped into a McDonald’s to enjoy fried corn sticks, oddly cut ‘rustic’ french fries and mint lemonade (‘limonana’). Ordering at a big screen kiosk in English was easy and a tad fun.
The next post in the series is about religion.
Footnotes: