august-2010

TEL AVIV
Lithuania & Ukraine: Batia
Jewish cooking is most often associated with the
Eastern European traditions of the Ashkenazim
– people originating from the once-vibrant Jewish
heartlands of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. Batia
sticks tight to those roots, drawing in an intriguing
mix of silver-haired old timers and twentysomething
trendies to lose themselves in its delicious renditions
of Jewish classics such as chicken soup, gefilte fish
(chopped carp) and calves’ foot jelly alongside
gut-busting mains such as goulash and cholent,
a slow-cooked stew of meat and dumplings that’s
guaranteed to ward off the Polish winter...
197 Dizengoff, +972 3 5221335
Palestine: Abu Hassan
Although the Arab city of Jaffa has been emasculated,
absorbed into greater Tel Aviv and gentrified with art
galleries, it’s still possible to pick up on its Palestinian
identity away from the tourist trails. Towards the
residential quarter of Ajami you’ll find what is often
claimed to be the purveyor of the finest hummus in
the land. You don’t go to Abu Hassan for comfort,
sophistication or service. You go for the original
house blend of this famous chickpea dip – smooth,
complex and deeply delicious.
14 Shivtei Yisrael, +972 3 6828355
58JetAway
Clockwise from above: Julie’s
Egyptian food; Silk Road specialities at
Samarkand; Salimi’s Persian cuisine
Libya: Dr Shakshuka
Near the Ottoman clock tower in the heart of Jaffa,
Bino Gabso – “Dr Shakshuka” himself – watches the
world from the dark and eccentric interior of his
restaurant. As he tells the story of how his father came
here from Libya in 1949 and began serving the only
food he knew, waiters scurry past, laden with orders
of the house special, shakshuka – a North African
blend of tomatoes and peppers spiced with paprika,
cooked in a pan and topped with runny-yolked
poached eggs. Other staples are available, of course,
from familiar couscous to the rather less familiar
masran (stuffed sheep’s intestines), and the distinctive
food and atmospheric surroundings ensure the good
doctor remains busy all day.
3 Beit Eshel, +972 3 5186560
Iran: Salimi
Back in Florentin, I’m watching Salimi, a little
one-room restaurant that’s one of Israel’s few outlets
serving authentic Persian cuisine, fill up. My waitress
Miri Levi, originally from a village in southern Iran
but 30 years in Tel Aviv, chats and lets me sample
some khoresht aloo, a fragrant tomato-based stew
flavoured with dried plums and apricots; ghormeh
sabzi (beef with beans and dried lemons), gondi
(chicken meatballs with hummus) and more. It’s not
sophisticated cooking but that delicious – and
distinctly Persian – savoury-sweet balance sends me
reeling. It’s a culture shock for the taste buds.
80 Nahalat Binyamin, +972 3 5188377