Shalom ya’ll!
Using WordPress app to write this post – please excuse all style weirdness – will fix it once I’m back home in Germany!
So yes, I’m still in Israel, in my hometown of Eilat, and more than happy to present my 5th account of Vegan Tel Aviv! You can read about my other visits here:
We arrived in Tel Aviv after supposedly the hottest week ever. Still, for us, it was super and super humid. I completely forgot how it is in August in Tel Aviv! We took this visit easy (something new since my daughter was born) and enjoyed some lovely vegan places!
For our first breakfast we went to Abulafia, a famous Arab bakery that now has branches all over Tel Aviv. We stopped there almost every morning to buy our daughter a roll or baygale (some kind of a Pretzel). We had the Zaatar pita and the red onion and sumac pita – simple, fresh, and delicious, like most street food that I know!
The actual culinary tour started at Ha’Carmel Market with my beloved friend, the other Gil, who now writes for Haaretz newspaper about food. He took us to a market restaurant Hashomer 1 – they serve this amazing appetizer of fire roasted eggplant in tahini:
Gil also took us to Iceberg, an ice cream place that offers vegan ice cream, but the flavors they had weren’t appealing to me so I took a strawberry sorbet, wasn’t that good (but my daughter liked it!). I guess sorbet isn’t my thing!
For dinner we ended up at my (former) favorite The Streets Café. I had a quinoa, sweet potatoe, walnuts, cranberries, and herbs salad – all was topped with raw tahini and was delicious – sadly, the service was lame and I don’t think I will go there so often as before.
For breakfast the next day we went to Café Landwer, one of those coffee chains that are all over Israel. Sitting on Tel Aviv’s busiest street, having a breakfast, people watching, enjoying the atmosphere. I really missed it!
Café Landwer offers a vegan breakfast (actually a whole vegan menu) and I enjoyed it a lot! A lentils, carrots, and herbs omelet (my daughter ate half of it!), with a salad, olives, fresh OJ, spreads and breads:
For lunch we met good old friends at the Port of Tel Aviv that offers mainly coffee shops. We ended up having a standard lunch at Café Nimrod, and I, again, took the dish of the magical combination of a roasted eggplant with tahini:
In the evening we went to Cookeez, a new popular ice cream place that offers homemade ice cream in between homemade cookies, including a vegan version!
I took the whole wheat chocolate chip cookie with peanut butter fudge cookie and in between coconut sorbet (they didn’t have Lotus ice cream like I was promised). Verdict: again, lame and even rude service, the cookies were too sweet and we weren’t sure why they were needed; it was too much!
The next breakfast was consumed after a crazy hour at a packed jamboree with three kids! We went to one of those small neighborhood cafés: Lilush. I ordered a vegan panini that looked promising on the menu: roasted zucchini, roasted eggplant, palm hearts (which are nowhere to be found in Germany so I never eat them), and rucola. Sadly, the sandwich was rather dry and although I asked for some sauce I never got it. Here it is with a side salad and ‘hafuch’ (the Israeli cappuccino):
For an afternoon snack I had a veggie bao and sweet potato gyoze with peanuts sauce – from Dim Sum – both were delicious and I regretted not eating ten!
I also tried the bubble tea juice from the new place in Dizengoff Center – B-Fresh. I took the Rio shake, with acai, dates, banana, coconut juice, my beloved tapioca bubbles and some strawberry bobbas. Let me tell you, with 35 degrees, and more than 80% humidity, this drink was something I was dreaming of!
Afterwards we went to one of the cafés at Ben Zion Boulevard – Ha’bima Café, had a wonderful ice coffee:
For dinner we went to a vegan Market restaurant, with one of my favorite people in the world. I took an Indian dish (lentils and rice) that turned out not for my taste and my sweet friend who liked it switched with me and so I had the cold Pad Thai salad which was really good! For dessert we had delicious coconut popsicle.
And before we move to my hometown, here are some photos from Tel Aviv:
And now we are in Eilat, my sleepy, dusty and very hot hometown. In the past few days we are suffering a horrible sandstorm from the east so not so much beach time as before.
Before the storm we were spending the days on the beach, doing almost nothing (as far as doing nothing with a year old baby goes…).
We eat mainly at home (nothing vegan and special around here!). I will post more Eilat food photos as we go 😄
A plate full with yummies at my parents:
Vegan breakfast at Café Greg
My favorite cooler: Barad
Grilled vegan cheese at home
Hummus, Chips, salad, at the Dolphins’ Reef:
Falafel at the ‘Generous Heart Falafel’:
Eggplants, tomatoes, pesto, pasta:
Foccacia and dips at the Royal Garden hotel café:
Eggplant and Tahini at Café Café:
My mom’s Couscous:
A girls night with my friends; my friend Shiraz is a chef and always happy to organize a vegan dinner!
Vegan Shakshuka at the Dekel Beach – with eggplant and mushroom:
Grilled cheese with pesto and some homemade fries at my parents (and fresh green tahini):
