The food, What took me so long to blog about this?

Just a salad prior to the main meal AND See the onion to use as a scoop?

I thought I was pretty familiar with Middle Eastern food before we went on this trip.  We eat a lot of hummus and pita and salads.  Well I was very surprised about what I did not know.

Every meal, 3 meals a day, we could have a variety of salads.  At sit down meals, we were served salads which easily could have been the entire meal AND then they brought out the main meal.  The salads were amazing, Turkish salad, Israeli salad, Red cabbage salad, garlic salad (this one we had at a restaurant in Bethany and I definitely need to replicate it).  

In Haifa, my second favorite restaurant on the trip

Once I got home for the first few days I repeated the salads to hang onto the memory of how good they were to eat and for us.

In Haifa, we visited a restaurant Villarica which had just been open for 2 days.  They touted their salads, and we were still early in the trip so we did not realize why.  Now we know why.  They had spectacular food as well, such that we went back a second night when we were on our own.  Ordering and paying for our meal the first night is an entirely different blog post.  Stay tuned.

In Tel Aviv, based on recommendations from a couple in our building we went to Balinjera, which was Ethopian.  This was probably one of the best meals we had.  It then caused us to research why there were so many Ethopians in Israel.  Operation Solomon

And the sweets.........one of the travelers had not had Halva before this trip.  She became the Halva lady.  Another woman loved hummus, any meal any time and she became the Hummus lady.  

In Tel Aviv our local guide asked us "What is Israel food?"  It was a trick question.  There is no Israeli food since Jewish people came from all over the world and brought their food back.  She brought us to a Hummus kiosk in the Carmel Market which had amazing hummus.  She also taught us to not waste the calories on pita bread and to use "leaves" of quartered onions to dip in the hummus.  We tried three different kinds once which had really soft eggplant inside the outer covering of hummus and one that had broken up falafel mixed in.

Some spectacular things we had were tamarind juice, fresh pomegranate juice, Bakar's Ice Cream in Rammaloh, a hummus restaurant in Haifa which had the moistest falafel and we watched it being deep fried.  

Owner of the best ice cream shop in Ramallah

In Nazareth, we went to a Schwarma place that was the equivalent of their fast food.  We also went to a spice shop there, which smelled amazing.  The clerk taught us about Mom's spice.  All the mothers there use 7 spices mixed in everything they cook so this particular shop calls it Mom's spice.

We also bought a small bag of some menthol crystals which we melted into water and sniffed it to cure our colds.  Definitely cleared out our sinuses.

Because of bad media this man has lost 5-6 busses 
cancelling a day

Appropriate restaurant in Israel

Home hosted meal at Christian Palestinian

In the Carmel Market, we sang YMCA with them.  They sang and danced all day

Home hosted meal in Jerusalem at Esther's house

The Halva lady and her patient husband

On the spot he made us Nutella and Labne in this bread

Where to buy the Mom's spice in Nazareth

Perfect timing I would say

I asked to take her picture.  "Whatever you want"