A new e-book titled “Israel’s Top 100 Ethnic Restaur-ants” gives English-speaking tourists a window into the Israeli foods that locals have raved about for years.
The book spans from Sabich Shel Oved — a simple eggplant-sandwich shop just east of Tel Aviv that usually has lines around the corner — to lesser-known places like Chachaporia Georgian cuisine in Jerusalem.
Published last month by World Jewish Heritage, a nonprofit that promotes tourism, the book also navigates Israel’s famous open-air markets, as locales such as Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market and Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem also include great restaurants and after-hours bars.
Israel has been on the culinary ascent of late, with dozens of new high-end restaurants and celebrity chefs, but many of the book’s best finds aren’t served up in white-cloth establishments or by rising stars. Rather, they are offered at nondescript holes in the wall or otherwise unadorned spots, such as the Libyan buffet offered by Rita’s Kitchen in Herzliya.
The book includes capsule reviews and photos. A number of hummus joints are featured, from Hum-mus Ashkara in Tel Aviv to Pinati in Jerusalem.
Israeli food critic, TV personality and chef Gil Hovav served as a consultant on the book. At a book launch last month in New York, Hovav was asked the question: What exactly is Israeli ethnic food?
“It’s Moroccan, Russian, Polish, Bukharian, Ethiopian, Syrian, Lebanese — you name it,” he said. And in the book’s foreword, he writes: “While terroir may be too big a word to apply to Israeli street food, we are definitely loyal to whatever grows in our sun-drenched part of the world, where everything seems to be in season all year round.”
To download the free e-book, visit www.worldjewishheritage.com/wjhmedia. — jta