Tel Aviv Beach

Day 5: The rain let up enough this morning for me to walk the few blocks from my hotel to one of the Tel Aviv beaches. No rain, but very strong winds. Photo: the promenade along the beach and the Monkey Sculpture of a monkey standing upside down on a cocoa bean. The beaches are crowded during the summer months.

Monkey Sculpture

Close–up of the upside down monkey.

Tel Aviv Beach

Looking in the other direction. Rain clouds.

Tel Aviv Beach

Many good surfing spots on the Tel Aviv beaches.

Israeli Street Food Tour

I took a taxi from my hotel to 105 King George Street to join an Israel Street Food Tour at the Happiness Joint. This tour is called a “street food tour” as on King George Street there are many restaurants with open kitchens and seating under a covering right off the street. You can try many Middle Eastern and Israeli foods here. On the tour was just another woman, from Quebec, Canada, our tour leader, and his friend. It stopped raining when we were in restaurants and then started pouring as soon as we were back on the street.

Sabich

We had sabich at the Happiness Joint, which is a tasty combination of eggplant steak, hard boiled egg, lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, and hummus. We made four more stops on the tour.

Falafel

Our next stop was for falafel, deep fried balls of ground chickpeas or fava beans or both with added herbs, spices, and onion. The condiments included hummus with green schug made of jalapenos, cilantro, garlic, cloves, cumin, cardamon, olive oil, and salt and orange techini made from toasted ground hulled sesame.

Roasted Cauliflower

Our third stop was at the Mizon restaurant, the creation of the famous Israeli chef Eyal Shani. The are Mizon restaurants also in other countries. Roasted cauliflower is one of his signature dishes.

Run Over Potato

Served with the roasted cauliflower was another of Chef Eyal Shani’s signature dishes: run over potato: a baked potato mixed with garlic, green onion, and sour cream and served paper thin.

Juice Bar

We crossed the street at the end of King George Street to a cross street and went to our fourth stop at a juice bar with a juice good for whatever ails you or what you want to improve. He had a hat on when we first came in and I told him that he was speaking so softly that I was having difficulty hearing him, so he took off his hat and, miraculously, his voice became louder. Later on, he put his hat back on and I complained that now I wouldn’t be able to hear him, but again, miraculously, his voice became even louder. One of the best laughs I had on my whole trip.

Mahalabia

Our fifth and last stop was for mahalabia, which is a Middle Eastern desert served warm or cold and made from milk, sugar, cream, corn starch, rose water, and syrup made from pomegrantes. This was the end of our food tour, a great tour to take to introduce you to Israeli street food.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

After the food tour, the other woman and I took a taxi to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Photo: outside statues in the rain in front of the museum.

Roy Lichtenstein

At the entrance to the museum is a mural by Roy Lichtenstein that he created just for the museum.

Sculpture Garden

I was looking forward to seeing the museum’s sculpture garden but the doors to it were locked due to the rain, so I was able only to view some of the sculptures. The photo shows one of them.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art has European works from the 16th to the 19th centuries, impressionism, post–impressionism, and 20th–century modern. In the photo, a painting by Joan Miro.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The museum also has a large collection of contemporary art. I took a taxi back to my hotel after visiting the museum but it took a long time to find one that didn’t already have people in it. Finally, I had luck. I was told that there are taxi apps that you can download on your phone if you need to call a taxi––it would have been a good idea to do so. An aside: some taxi drivers will give you a choice of whether to pay in U.S. dollars or shekels (Israeli money) but most want to be paid in shekels, so if you are going to take taxis, load up on shekels.

Gate 1 Tour

This night I joined a Gate 1 tour named “8–Day Essential Israel,” which really means three days of travel to and from Israel and five days of actual touring. I went to eat at the hotel’s buffet for dinner and a new friend who would be on the tour said that she would come with me and just have coffee. I had to explain to her that you couldn’t have coffee with milk or cream in it at dinnertime at the restaurant as meat was being served, but you could at breakfast as no meat is served. This was not the same at all the hotels where we stayed, but something to figure out at each hotel. My tour, I think, ended up with 39 people, with very surprisingly two people from my small hometown in New York where I grew up plus one who grew up in a neighboring town and still lives on Long Island. I could share memories. All tour members were from the U.S. with two from Korea. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer tour group. Our tour director was Bo’Az, an Israeli originally from South Africa. The photo of him was taken later on the trip.

I have put my photos of the Israeli Street Food Tour and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on a slideshow. Go to http://www.peggysphotos.com/israeli–street–food–tour–tel–aviv–museum–of–art/ (Slide Shows, Middle East, Israel, Tel Aviv, “Israeli Street Four Tour/Tel Aviv Museum of Art”).