Good news, bad news, BEST falafel in Israel

Good news: I will be going to Jerusalem and probably the Dead Sea this weekend. A lot of good photos of the most sacred city in the world and the lowest point on Earth below sea level coming up.

Bad news: I misplaced my SD card and my battery charger do not seem to be working.

I just finished one of the very Israeli/Middle Eastern dishes in town. It is called Falafel. Essentially is some chickpea balls inside a pita bread. I was really looking foward to it. Because my labmates say this is the BEST falafel in Haifa. Then another acquaintance from another lab corrected him, he says ‘No, this is the BEST falafel in Israel’ Wow, that is a big claim man, whole of Israel lei, dun play play. I don’t even dare to claim that my favourite duck rice stall in Paya Lebar is the best in Singapore.

More about the duck rice first since I must really promote it now that I have a blog. It has the best Char Siew and Pork Rib and Hakka Chicken in town I think. Website can be found at http://kayleeroastmeatjoint.com/

A good review can be found at http://ieatishootipost.sg/2007/06/kay-lee-roast-meat-joint-move-over.html

It was the last meal I had before I set off to Changi for my trip. Yum yum, I missed it so much. And that day was quite funny, shen wei jun was at the store eating too. The store owner wants a photo with him and gave him such a tight hug when taking the photo. 老牛吃嫩草. Super take advantage of him. The store owner is quite a character, so don’t mess with her when you are going over there to eat.

Ok, lets get back to see the highly waited ‘Best Falafel in Israel‘

The falafel is the green stuff, presumably chickpeas which is brown on the outside after frying. Inside it still got some salad which you can choose the type of vegetables you want inside. The white topping is a mayo lookalike but pretty tasteless. The bread ma jiam like from chicken foldover in MacDonalds.

Itadakimasu! Sandeep insists on sitting at the counter to eat instead of bringing back because he want to add the white sauce every now and then. The store is not very big, you can sit a grand total of 6 people. In Singapore, if something is the best, you probably have to wait at least 45 mins for the food. Over here, the best falafel can be eaten after at most 5 mins of queueing if you ever need to queue up at all.

Monstrous Sandeep, too much white sauce added

Have to add more white sauce to see what the fuss is about. Unfortunately, I cant appreciate it.

I have to finish it since its the best. Its quite cheap also, compared to other food anywhere.

Done with it.

Conclusion 1: A rating of 3/5 2.5/5 (0.5 marks deducted because the expectations were so high and the end result wasn’t really expected)

Conclusion 2: Singapore is not considered a food paradise for nothing. You can find all kinds of food there, you must surely like something.

Conclusion 3: If this is the best Israel has to offer, please send me food!! My atrocious cooking taste better. They don’t eat a lot of meat (only chicken), eat mostly vegeterian and yet have no leafy vegetables, no seafood except a little fish here and there, no creativity in their cooking since the few cafeterias around the campus all sell similar looking food.

My address (this time with the postal code)

A.H Silver Street 15/11

Neve Sha’anan

Haifa 32693

Israel

I will post the hebrew version of the address as well, since I don’t know if the postman can read or not. In the next post. Good news, Sandeep just bought a bottle of Chilli Sauce, which I thought was extinct in Israel. Nobody eats spicy food. If you offer an Israeli spicy food, please warn them first.

The era of cheap food is over

I really think that the times of cheap food is over, not just in Israel but all around the world.

Food in Singapore is really cheap, when you compare to Israeli food. Dirt cheap I must say. A simple McDonalds meal can cost you S$15 which is 3 times as expensive as what I can get in NTU. NTU’s new foodcourt is opened but I won’t get to try it until I get back.

I had a lunch today at an Arabic restaurant. The lab mates have to go there as they are missing their daily bread consumption (the Jews, at least the more religious ones) cant eat baked bread for a week). This dish is called Hummus. It consisted of grinded chickpeas and chicken and onions in the middle.

This is downtown Haifa, nearer the sea level and where the poorer people lives. It seems that the richer people stay higher above sea level. The higher you go, the richer you are.

The Hummus shop. Its an Arabic shop. So they can sell bread as other Jewish shops cannot sell bread for a week. All the naughty Jews that want to eat bread will have to go to such shops.

This is the appetizer, onions on the left, pickles on the right, some green chili like stuff in the middle and the small round ones are olives.

The forbidden bread, you can use to dip into the hummus and eat.

This is the hummus. The chickpeas paste spread around the plate and some fried chicken and onions in the middle. They say that you must like hummus to stay in Israel. If I don’t like it, I will be chastised.

Other sides include wedges and salad.

A bitter coffee to finish the meal. Not something I like very much.

So the whole meal + the taxi ride to and fro costs me S$28. Not something affordable daily. The Israelis sure spend a lot on food I think. Buying groceries back and cook is much cheaper. People, pls send me all your recipes. Nothing too fanciful please since they don’t have soya sauce, chili sauce, garlic etc.

Back to the topic of expensive food, I don’t think food price will ever be the same again when I get back to Singapore. The impact of converting farmland and forests to make biofuels has caused food prices to skyrocket. People in Singapore and other countries, Philippines seems to be in a particularly bad shape, are all affected. Rice is gonna get more and more expensive and it probably can’t become a staple food for many people anymore.

The situation is looking bad. May Obama save us. Vote for Obama!