Carmel Market, Tel Aviv

There is such a wonderful rhythm to this market; early weekday mornings are quiet with only the vendors hurrying about, shoppers taking their time to inspect the produce or chat with the men behind the piles of lettuce, chives and radishes. Early afternoons tend to get busy with group tours tasting foods, tourists taking photos and later in the day people shop on the way home after work. Fridays are a wonderful mayhem; there is yelling, there are crowds, but there is also excitement, anticipation of some time off or a celebration of Shabbat.

The Carmel Market is one of my favorite places in Tel Aviv and while staying in Israel I try to walk through or shop there every day, sometimes even more than that. This is the place to shop for the sweetest strawberries, the tastiest 5% cream cheese that we love for breakfast, the freshest bread, the best challah, the silky-on-the-inside but heavenly crispy bureka, the juicy watermelon, the colorful and fragrant spices that we throw into our salads or when we want to add some excitement into plain rice.

A stroll through the market is a sensory overload, a wonderment for all the senses and a pick me up for the soul.

The Carmel Market runs the length of HaCarmel street from Magen David Square to the end of Carmalit. Most of the stalls are open from 8am until the early hours of the evening. On Friday it closes in the early afternoon and it stays closed on Saturday.

This is the place for your bureka needs.

As much as I love the main market street, it is really worth venturing out to the multitude of side streets for some excellent food. A separate post on that is coming up tomorrow.

Eerily silent and deserted on a Saturday.

Joanna

Comments

Bordier Butter - The Best Butter in France

France is in the midst of a butter shortage! Due to a decrease in milk production and a substantial demand for French pastries all over the world (mainly China and the Middle East), the price of butter has increased by 60% in one year. The French are stocking up and thus creating shortages. French newspapers are publishing articles titled "A guide to cooking without butter". So, with hopes that the shortages are temporary, here is my ode to the best butter in the world. I'm not kidding. The. Best. Butter. In. The. World. Mr. Bordier, a grandson and a son of cheese mongers, became a butter artisan in 1985. He acquired a creamery originally founded in 1927. The supreme taste of the Bordier butter was first recognized by a chef from the Plaza Athenee while vacationing in Brittany, a beautiful region in northwestern France. Bordier is the lone butter master to still use the old method of kneading the butter according to the 19th century t...

Grandma's Kitchen, Hangzhou

In need of some traditional cooking, we made our way to Grandma's Home/Grandma's Kitchen. We were prepared for a long wait since this is a very popular restaurant, but got lucky and only waited for 15 minutes. It was after 8pm, maybe that was the reason. There is a computer at the entrance where one can register for a table. We just gave our name to the girl inside the lobby, she in turn handed us a paper with our number on it. As we waited outside, we kept our eyes glued to the screen in the lobby showing the ticket numbers. When our number came up, the lobby girl gave us the number of our table and we took the elevator to the 8th floor. The numbers are on the edge of each table. I really liked the design of the restaurant. It was creative in the use of old jars with words scribbled on them, chalk like drawings on the walls and bamboo beams creating a roof above us. The menu was in Chinese but we...

Food in Lucerne, Switzerland

After a hearty walk around the Old Town we decided that a small lunch would give us some nourishment and an opportunity to rest. We were not looking for a huge feast but something small to tied us over till dinner. As we walked by a restaurant with a few tables set up on a small square, I noticed a great looking Caesar salad and that was it. We sat down, and enjoyed a surprisingly good lunch. The place was called Cafeteria Emilio, it was clean, fast and delicious. I liked that they had plenty of magazines to peruse. Although they were all in German, I still had fun looking through them. My husband got a curry chicken sandwich and I got a chicken Caesar salad, it was very fresh and tasty. A few days prior to our arrival in Lucerne I made dinner reservations at Marlin, a lovely fish restaurant at the Palace Luzern, our hotel. It was a beautiful evening and it couldn't have been spent any better than at the lakeside terrace. ...

A Fork And A Suitcase

Search This Blog